Archer Farms Fennel Sausage & Roasted Peppers Pizza

It's been a while since we've reviewed a pizza. I was in the mood for something hearty, and this looked like the perfect selection, so I yoinked it right out of my Target's freezer. It was the last one in there, so I'm lucky I got there when I did.

I wasn't familiar with fennel sausage until I tried this product. It's apparently pretty similar to another kind of sausage that I am familiar with: chorizo. In both taste and texture, the two seem very much alike to me. They both work well as chopped up little dicey chunks, they're both full of spices and flavor, and they both have a similar texture. Of course, the spices in the fennel sausage tend to be European, particularly Italian, and although chorizo has European roots also, the varieties I've tried are full of Latin spices, particularly Mexican.

I've never been a big sausage fan, but I find both chorizo and fennel to be palatable. I'll try the wurst from German festivals, but I'm not into the American Jimmy Dean breakfast stuff so much.

As far as the pizza was concerned, it was good overall, don't get me wrong. I was just craving more tertiary toppings with this one. The sausage was good. The roasted peppers were fine. But I wanted extra toppings like onions, olives, and jalapenos on this one for some reason. Also, the cheese could have been more prevalent and there could have been a thicker layer of tomato sauce. But that could be said about most AF pizzas.

During my little research session, I also learned that fennel sausage is especially appropriate to serve during fall harvest months. Yay! What a happy accident. I love it when I eat foods at the correct time of year. That being said, I should also mention that I've heard rumors of Archer Farms pumpkin products. I shall be hunting these down on my next Target run. Stay tuned for pumpkin reviews!

I give this pizza 7 out of 10 stars.

Simply Balanced Apricot Fruit Strips

When I was a boy, I had a dog named Apricot. She was an apricot-colored toy poodle. I chalk the unoriginality of the name up to the fact that I was only six years old when we got her. But she was a great dog, and she died while I was away at college, just shy of her 16th birthday. She's now buried in my parents' backyard in what used to be a small vegetable garden, with a little gravestone marker with her name and the years 1985 - 2001.

Whenever I hear the word "apricot," I think about her. But that being said, I was never really a fan of apricot the fruit. I would often try apricot-flavored things, thinking that it would be fun to have something with the same name as my dog, but it seldom was. I usually wound up disappointed and would ask my dad to trade my apricot-flavored thing for a cherry-flavored thing or an apple-flavored thing.

But I guess my tastes have matured, because I thought these apricot-flavored fruit strips were really tasty. Or maybe it's because less than 2% of the product is made with apricot. The rest is...apple! The orange-ish color goes a long way into fooling you that it's really honestly made of apricot. And there's an undeniable hint of something apricot-ish. But virtually all of the sweetness comes from apple.

And sweetness coming from apples is better than sweetness coming from most other forms of sugar. So I'm not complaining. These strips are low in fat and calories, and like other fruit snacks we've reviewed, they're hella sticky.

All in all, these are great, healthy snacks. It might be my nostalgic love of old Apricot talking, but I think I liked these even a little better than the recently reviewed Raspberry Lemonade Ropes.

Any other dog lovers out there? Click here to watch my current pups review a Trader Joe's product. Should they start doing Boots & Barkley brand reviews?

I give these apricot strips 8 out of 10 stars.