PC Insider's Report Summer 2012 Product Reviews

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

SUMMERTIME!  I'm sorry Christmas, as much as I love ya, I'll take a nice warm sunny weekend at the beach over shovelling snow or line ups at the mall any day.  I seem to change my seasons with the arrival of the new PC Insider's Report, not the calendar, and the summer edition is always a favourite.

I was thrilled to receive a variety of new and must try PC items to try out and share my opinions on.  This box of products just exuded summertime party fun, and since they arrived on a Friday, what better excuse than the weekend to jump right in.

First we popped open the PC Loads of Buffalo Wing Ranch Tortilla Chips, they were excellent! They had a nice Buffalo wing flavour and the ranch cooled things down so we didn't end up with crazy after-heat.  Chelsea even grabbed a couple!  Even with the cooling effect of the ranch, I'm still going to make some blue cheese dip to have with them next time...yum!

The next night after Chelsea went to bed, the chocolate came out... 

We received the PC Milk Chocolate Covered Crunchy Peanut Butter Clusters and the PC Milk Chocolate Covered Crispy Coated Peanuts.  The Peanut Butter Clusters were absolutely yummy, they had the whole peanut butter/chocolate package, plus the extra crunch from the peanuts.

The Crispy Coated Peanuts were definitely crunchy and somewhat addictive, but they were lacking in the amount of chocolate flavour for both of us.

Okay, enough snacks for now...

One of the new PC marinades we received was the PC Steak Spice Marinade, so what better excuse to throw some steaks on the grill.  

Most of the time, we buy grilling steaks and put them right on the grill and then season them. This time, I selected some eye of round marinating steaks... they were so much more economical! I poured on some marinade (about 1/4 of the bottle), turned the steaks to coat them (I had them in a glass pie dish), covered with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for about four hours.

The steaks were great, very flavourful and tender.  The sodium level of the marinade is somewhat high (420mg per tbsp), but considering you don't use much and you don't need to further season the meat, it's not out of line.  We also grilled some red potatoes, baby carrots, mini bellas and onions.  I will no longer fear the 'marinating steak' at the meat counter.

And for dessert...

Ever since Chelsea saw the PC Cupcake Kit, she wanted at it.  The box is so cute and it really draws in cupcake lovers like her (and me, who am I kidding).  I bake some pretty killer cupcakes though, but I was going to try as hard as possible to remain unbiased.

The kit comes complete with cupcake liners, a white cake mix, a chocolate cake mix, a frosting mix and sprinkles.  The liners match the sprinkles, which is a nice touch.

Instead of making a dozen each, I decided to make marble cupcakes and tried out the 'zebra' technique I've seen on Pinterest.  The batter wasn't quite thin enough and my technique not good enough to get the desired effect, but they still were nicely marbled.

The cupcakes rose up nice and high and kept a nice domed top.

I'm so happy that the frosting mix was just basically icing sugar and you had to add your own unsalted butter and milk... it was yummy and made more than enough for all of the cupcakes.  In the end I would have easily had enough to pipe on the frosting, but decided to go old school because Chelsea was going to be decorating them.

All in all, I found them a bit dry and not as flavourful as I'm used to.  Hubby reminded me that the cupcakes I am used to are not 'regular' cupcakes, and he said these were actually better than average and miles better than any of the pre-made grocery store cupcakess.  I did appreciate that they weren't 'fake' tasting... when you look at the ingredients listing, you can actually read them and know what they are.  I think these will appeal mostly to kids and teens learning to bake.  The reason I say this is if you already have two muffin pans, the oil and eggs needed to make the cupcakes and the unsalted butter and milk to make the frosting, you probably have the other ingredients on hand to make the cupcakes completely from scratch... but the idea certainly is a cute one.

Have you checked out any of the products in the new PC Insider's Report?  What did you think?

Stay tuned for more PC product reviews over the coming weeks!

Disclosure:  I received complimentary product from Loblaws to sample/review if desired.  Opinions, as always, are all mine.