Junk Food Nation, it’s Monday, the NFL playoff picture is sort of clearer, my Bills have been eliminated (GRRR OAKLAND), and I’m hungry. As some of you have seen on my Instagram, I love noodles. Noodle noodles noodles. I could eat them ALL THE TIME. My mom makes killer noodles; the Junk Food Gal loves them.  And I wanted to share this awesome video by an early friend of this blog, Lynn Chen of the Actor’s Diet:

Ok, now I really want noodles. What are your favorite noodles? Let me know in the comments below.

TODAY’S TURKEY HILL FREE COUPON WINNER:

The RT contest over the weekend was great. Today’s two random winners are:

@csciria

@FredaCarl

Congrats, you two – email me your contact info to Junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com and I’ll get the free coupon in the mail to you!

TODAY’S WAY TO WIN A FREE 1.5 QT OF TURKEY HILL ICE CREAM:

To win today, let’s keep the RT train going – time to RT RT RT today’s post on Twitter. Just like this weekend’s contest, I’ll select a random winner from the pool of people who have retweeted this post and another post that will go up around 8-ish tonight.  Only TWO posts to RT today – so get on it!

EPISODE 45 OF THE NOSH SHOW IS HERE!

For the uninitiated, The Nosh Show is a podcast started by Marvo from The Impulsive Buy, featuring Ryan from GrubGrade, Dubba from On Second Scoop, and, of course, me, your friendly neighborhood Junk Food Guy.  And today marks the release of The Nosh Show, Episode 45: Aporkalypse:

This week, “we argue about having Doritos on a pizza crust, the return of French Toast Crunch cereal, Wasabi & Soy Sauce Pringles, and Carl’s Jr.’s Aporkalypse Breakfast Sandwich. We also discuss what we’d cut from McDonald’s menu, champagne-flavored jelly beans, and much more.”  Listen embedded here:

You can subscribe to The Nosh Show using various services: iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, RSS, or, you can also download the episode.

TODAY’S JUNK FOOD: Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites!!

Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites are apparently a bunch of flavors that were previously discontinued that have been brought back to form this holiday mix.  It’s a good selection of flavors too – egg nog, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, candy cane, and hot chocolate.  I wouldn’t recommend eating these in a mixed handful.

Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites, why is your candy cane green and red striped?  I know those exist, but you are messing with my mind here!

Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites are made in a peanut free factory, and are …..vegan, I think?

Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites are a colorful bunch, but certainly in the more red-brown scheme of things. Plus, it looks like there are some dinosaur eggs in there too.

My take on all of these Jelly Belly Holiday Favorites:

Egg Nog: I have to admit, when I had one of these alone, I initially weirdly tasted the flavor of…bubble gum?  Shaking it off, I ate three Egg Nog jelly beans at once, and the flavor of the egg nog CLEARLY came through – the sweet creaminess and the nutmeg, along with the egg-y flavor….really really good. I think my tongue got stuck on the front edge of the nutmeg flavor when I had one bean. This is definitely a multi-bean flavor.

Candy Cane: The pink jelly bean with green speckles was SPOT ON. I can’t even describe how perfect the flavor of these jelly beans were. As soon as I popped a couple into my mouth, I felt like I WAS eating candy canes; the peppermint-y flavor was bright and sugary like a candy cane. NAILED IT. NAILED IT.

Pumpkin Pie: I chewed a couple of these at once, and they were….ok.  I was kind bummed, as pumpkin pie is one of my favorites. I definitely got a sweet flavor, and as I chewed, a small pumpkin spice flavor emerged, but it tasted more like cinnamon than anything else. Don’t get me wrong – I liked the taste of these – but they were as hit-me-over-the-head and spot-on as the egg nog or candy cane.  Sigh.

Cranberry Sauce: THESE WERE REALLY GOOD – but to be honest, these were never going to be a stretch. You can flavor something just as “cranberry” and call it cranberry sauce, and you’d never know the difference. Bright and juicy, and full of cranberry flavor, these tasted like they could’ve come out of a variety of other flavor combos too. Just a pure, sweet, cran flavor with a decent bite.  Pretty good.

Hot Chocolate: LOL, these were okay, but they tasted like Tootsie Rolls!  Which maybe some of you like. I’m so-so on Tootsie Rolls…but I have to admit, these did get the flavor of hot chocolate more spot on than not.  The chocolate flavor tasted muted, and I was able to taste some marshmallow-y flavor in there.  Not bad…not my favorite, but not bad.

So there you go JFNation. I’d probably rank these: 1) Candy Cane, 2) Egg Nog, 3) Cranberry Sauce, 4) Hot Chocolate, 5) Pumpkin Pie.

PURCHASED AT: Target, Germantown, MD

COST: $2.50 on sale

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy