What The Hell Is Arancini? - Arancini Bites

So I'm strolling out of ALDI the other night and the last thing you pass at our ALDI is the horizontal freezer with the special frozen foods. The stuff that was in the ad that week that you'll probably never see again. Although, the Mac and Cheese Bites have had some amazing staying power.  Anyway, I see this box with a word on it I've never seen before so today, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you - Specially Selected Arancini Bites?

What the...?

First things first, there's no way this is a real thing. I'm Googling this stuff. Well I'll be damned - Arancini or arancine are fried rice balls coated with breadcrumbs, said to have originated in Sicily in the 10th century. Arancini are usually filled with meat sauce, tomato sauce, cheese and/or peas. Please accept my humble apologies, ALDI. 

Cooking With ALDI - Greek Stuffed Tomatoes

Hey, this new segment has made it to a second post. Queue the celebratory fireworks! Yay!!! So onto this weeks ALDI recipe. I tried to find something easy with just a few ingredients 'cause even after last time's amazing bean dip I'm still skeptical that this is going to work out. With that in mind, this week's adventure in ALDI cooking is Greek Stuffed Tomatoes!

 The Goods

As a reminder, we got some rules.

1. Use the specific ALDI products listed in the recipe whenever available.
2. If the product in the recipe is not available, substitute with a suitable ALDI product.
3. If rules 1 and 2 can not be followed, purchase item from another grocer OR if the item is deemed not integral to the recipe, leave out altogether.

Beans, Beans, Good For Your Heart - Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans

I love a good cup of coffee in morning. But, like you my loyal readers, I don't have time to be grinding and blending and brewing and stopping at McDonalds for a cup. Luckily, ALDI has taken care of that by making coffee edible! Ladies and Gentlemen, today I give you Specially Selected Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Roasted Coffee Beans!

Suck It, Starbucks!

Man, the Specially Selected products have been hitting it out of the ballpark lately. I almost think they're just slapping a "Specially Selected" label on Trader Joe's products and reselling them. So let's see how this baby did.

Spreadable, Not Edible - Spreadable Cheddar & Horseradish Cheese

Processed cheese is a wonder of human ingenuity. Is there anything better than spray cheese? Kraft American Slices? Cheese balls? Velveeta? No, even the invention of the wheel pales in comparison to being able to spread, melt or wrangle cheese onto or into anything you please. So of course when I saw spreadable cheese at ALDI I was delighted. Ladies and gentlemen, today I give you - Specially Selected Gourmet Spreadable Cheese Cheddar & Horseradish.

Robust!

In an earlier review, the Lady enjoyed the Garlic and Herb variety of this product. I have high hopes for Cheddar and Horseradish so let's get right to it. 

 

Gourmet Spreadable Cheese - Garlic and Herb Edition

ALDI is really stepping it up with their Specially Selected brand. Hit after hit after hit. I've thought about those Specially Selected cream puffs every day for over a week. I almost bought more of them tonight, they were so goo- ok, get it together, we're here to talk about cheese not cream puffs and you love cheese - cheese is almost your favorite food behind bagels, pho, clementines, vanilla soft serve, and waffles. (Fun fact: when we started this blog, I thought that I would have more fun with a blog dedicated solely to vanilla soft serve - just pictures of vanilla soft serve from all over the county (or more likely, all over Georgia). I was going to call it "A Soft Serving." You guys would read that right? When you're done reading this review, google-image search for "vanilla soft serve," you won't be sorry. It's a beautiful gallery.)

So Specially Selected Gourmet Spreadable Cheese Garlic and Herb flavor is pretty decent spread. This is clearly meant to knock off Rondele and it's totally adequate at that. We ate it with ALDI's version of reduced fat Wheat Thins (which are also perfectly adequate). Wanna see what it looks like?

Specially Selected Cream Puffs

Happy post-holidays ALDI-eaters. I know it's been awhile since there has been a new review, but I don't want you guys to worry; I ate a lot of ALDI food over the holidays (we all celebrate in our own special ways, no judgements).   I wanted to start off What's Good at ALDI 2013 with a positive review so let's talk about Specially Selected Cream Puffs.

I stopped by a new ALDI on my way home to my parents' house and was trying to pick out something I thought I could convince my sister to eat. I have been eyeing these cream puffs from day one but I always balked at the $4.99 price tag. But my sister LOVES cream puffs and they were on sale for the first time and here we are.

WE INTERRUPT OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG POSTING - Sea Salt Caramels

***ALDI EMERGENCY BLOG POST***

Sorry for the panic I know this has caused, but I just got the ALDI flyer in my inbox and found something you need to know about. There is one thing at ALDI that comes around once or twice a year that turns this blog from "What's Good At ALDI" into "What's GREAT At ALDI" and it's these and they're back!

INCREDIBLE and only $3.49!

I'm not going to waste time with a review. Time you could be using to run, I repeat RUN, to ALDI and grab every last box of these. I'll only say this - this post is by me, GC and you know how hard I am on ALDI products. NOW GO!

Update from the Lady: Specially Selected Sea Salt Caramels get an A++. Bonus points for being an amazing gift and a for a having a box sized for 10 pieces but only giving you nine.

Pumpkin Blitz: Pumpkin Ravioli

I just ate this Specially Selected Pumpkin Ravioli for dinner and it was great!  Of course, I knew it was going to be great. I have also had ALDI's portobello mushroom ravioli which will be reviewed in the future (spoiler: also great).

You have to be pretty careful when making these raviolis as they're very delicate. I've never been considered delicate, so naturally at least one ravioli will break in the pot and a couple of more in the strainer. I will say that when the first one broke in the pot, my entire stove-area immediately smelled like pumpkin pie. So fragrant!

I ate them with a light mushroom sauce and it was perfect. So perfectly fall. I think I said before that ALDI's sweet spot was snack food, but maybe it's ravioli. I hope everyone starts buying their ravioli from ALDI! A bag of 15 ravioli is $2.50 which is three servings so that is definitely a steal.

I love it when ALDI does well. It makes me think that at some point, I might have enough awesome items that I can go to ALDI more frequently than the regular grocery. I give these Pumpkin Ravioli an A+. Bonus points for smelling so good (and I haven't been smelling too well lately).