The Snook and I tried Atkins Chocolate Chocolate Chip Brownie Mix tonight and we were a little disappointed. First off, it retails for five bucks in the U.S. Guess how much I had to pay for it here? Twenty. Twenty dollars Australian. (With the exchange rate it should’ve been $8 AU, so there was more than a 100% markup on it.) Next, I followed the instructions exactly. Dump the contents in a bowl, add 1/3 cup oil, 1/4 water, and an egg. Mix. Pour into loaf pan. “Pour” was a little optimistic though. This stuff was like thick sticky mud. The Snook kept asking, “Are you sure you followed the directions correctly?” I was sure. The end product was predictably dense and dry. Chocolatey, yes, but way too crumbly. By morning it’ll be hard as a rock. So did I get a bag with a wacky incorrect recipe? Because when I pay twenty dollars for brownies, I expect them to be good.
Important Note
This site features content going all the way back to 2000. The posts you’ll read reflect my views and writing style at the time. While I have gone back to clean up a few of them, I think it’s important not to sanitise too much. This site is a record of who I am and how I’ve grown. Any blog post written years ago may not reflect who I am today, nor how I would write about the same topic today.
Comments
8 responses to “Atkins brownies”
is full-fat ice cream legal on Atkins? sounds like a perfect excuse for some brownie sundaes to me. 😉
I jumped back on the Atkins bandwagon yesterday, tired of those 10-20 pounds that keep hanging around (because of those bad munchy habits, of course). I enjoy your updates and pictures about your Atkins successes and challenges; it’s very motivating to see how well you’ve done!
We’ve actually found “carb-modified” ice cream here from Nestle! That made the brownies a little more palatable. 🙂
Breyers has recently come out with a full-fat Splenda version of ice cream. Dammit…. I forget what it’s called, exaclty, because I’ve only seen it once. But it rocks hard. I love ice cream. I love Splenda. Put them together and I am indeed a happy camper.
And Kris — your experience with the brownies is not an isolated event. I’ve never bought any of the Atkins bake mixes with any success. I think they’re downright awful, to tell you the truth. I’d rather just go without than have subpar munchies.
If I wanted to go atkins, would eggs, sausage, and cheese be legal? After a week of that would I still be alive? I figure, eggs and suasage is a good hearty breakfast. Cheese is good for a light lunch. Cheese also makes a good snack. And for dinner, who knows, maybe more cheese. Chesse can be expensive tho.
Dan – Those are definitely Atkins friendly foods*. You don’t eat them for every *single* meal though. I usually have eggs and cheese for breakfast, salad for lunch, and then meat and veg for dinner. On most days I have an after-work snack of cheese or nuts or a dill pickle. After nearly a year of that I’m forty pounds lighter and my cholesterol and blood pressure have gone DOWN! Believe it; it’s possible.
* Re: Sausage, you’ve gotta watch the ingredients list. A lot of butchers will bulk up their links with “cereals” and other weird stuff. Basically look towards the more expensive “gourmet” sausages… They’ll have a higher meat content and probably taste better too!
I feel bad about misrepresenting myself now. I don’t really eat sausage. I’m actually something of a vegetarian (well, not really, but I have particular rules which add up to not eating a lot of meat). But I am perfectly willing to live off of cheese, no question about that. I might try it, you know, for the sake of science. I have had my eye on this one 5lb block of cheddar at Kroger for some time.
Ah, you’re a MOCKER! 🙂
Yeah, it’s hard to do Atkins if you’re vegetarian, I think. It’d be pretty monotonous, at any rate. But cheese is definitely on the list! The Snook thinks I’m turning into a mouse because we actually buy the 1 kilo block of Colby (What’s that? 2.2 pounds, I think) and I go through it in a week. It’s good stuff. I like to cut it into sticks and dip them in baba ganoush. I’d kill for some Colby Jack though. They just don’t have that here.