Junk Food Nation, it’s hump day!  And it’s time to begin the daily month long Turkey Hill contest!

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

Wait, what do you mean, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Damnit…GO HERE and get up to speed.

As for today’s way to win (and I will be choosing a winner TODAY), I’ll be sending out a Turkey Hill tweet on Twitter @ Exactly 4:31pm EST.  EXACTLY.  RT that Tweet to enter to win!  I’ll be picking the winner out of the 1, 2, 12, 46 entries, whatever it is.  IT’S THAT EASY.  And I’ll announce it on this blog tomorrow.  So be on the look out at 4:31pm.  You’ll know it when you see it.

Incidentally, you guys have been so good, already entering so many times in yesterday’s contest.  Keep it going!

DO YOU LOOK WHILE GIVING BLOOD?

So, recently I feel like I’ve been deluged by images of needles – I visited a friend in the hospital who recently had a baby, I’ve seen people doing drugs in movies, I’ve watched syringes go into skin on NBC’s “Crisis”… it’s like needles are EVERYWHERE!  *shiver*

For me, needles sort of give me the heebie jeebies. But I qualify that by saying I’m not scare of them – shots don’t bother me at all, and when I lived next door to a chapter of the Maryland Red Cross, I’d give blood regularly.  But I realized that I NEVER LOOK.  I can’t watch the needle go into my own skin, I can’t – I don’t know why.  I prefer to live in blissful ignorance, just calmly anticipating the sting on my arm.

But I have friends, including the Junk Food Gal, that say they NEED to watch what’s going into the arm. One friend told me it’s because they need to know WHEN the sting might come. Holy crap.  I think for me the problem is I have a huge fight or flight reaction at times – I feel like if I was watching the medical needle approach my skin, I’d tense up, jump off the chair, and go running screaming for the hills.  That is to say, I don’t trust myself NOT to freak out.

What about YOU, Junk Food Nation?  When it comes to needles and giving blood, or getting a shot, or even getting tattoos – do you look? Or are you like me? Tell me in the comments below.

TODAY’S JUNK FOOD: PEEPS Minis (Chocolate & Strawberry)!

PEEPS Minis!  We discussed these on an episode of the Nosh Show recently:

I only found the Chocolate Creme and Strawberry Creme PEEPS Minis at my local Safeway, but there is a third Sour Watermelon variety somewhere out there (and I think my fellow podcaster Dubba found Vanilla Creme ones out there too!)  On the Nosh Show these were a NOT for me because I was worried they’d taste like Circus Peanuts and because they looked weird.  I do LIKE Peeps, but…Peeps Minis?  Really?  This is happening?

I was glad to find the Chocolate and Strawberry PEEPS Minis, because if I ended up liking these, I could eat them at the same time to form a delicious marshmallow-y combination of flavors.  Who doesn’t like chocolate and strawberry?  Yo momma, that’s who.

I pretty sure that to people eating PEEPS Minis, like me, the fact that these are 14 calories a chick isn’t a selling point.

PEEPS Minis contain an unholy list of ingredients. Let’s move on.

So when I opened these bags of PEEPS Minis, the aroma coming out of each bag was STRONG.  The strawberry smell POURED out of the bag – I could smell it from 10 feet away.  The chocolate smell wasn’t as pungent, but when I placed my nose to the bag, my lungs filled with chocolate.  Holy cow. Better example: after I opened the bag, the Junk Food Gal came into the room remarking, “What did you just open? I could smell the sugar from the kitchen.” BOOM.

I was right – these looked REALLY weird.  If Peeps are normal shaped like chicks, then these Peeps Minis did look like not-fully-formed-chicken-embryos.  I’M SORRY, SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT.  Whatever, you were thinking it too.  Texture wise, they were SUPER soft.  Like, floppy soft.

Before I tell you how these PEEPS Minis tasted, it is worth noting how TINY these were.  Each Peep was easy to eat in one bite, obviously, and honestly, you could’ve shoved several into your mouth at once.  While they looked really weird, the smaller size, in a fun way, was appealing. I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because they were loose and I didn’t have to tear the Peep from another brother Peeps, stretching that other Peep out into a mangled mess trying to get to the initial one.

I popped each flavor into my mouth, and must admit – I LIKED THESE.  A LOT.  Like, I surprised myself how much I liked these, and here’s why. My favorite part of Peeps, in general, is the outside.  That’s why so many people like letting their Peeps get stale – it firms up the outside even more so it’s like you’re eating marshmallow Fruit-Rollup, or a marshmallow skin.  And these Peeps Minis? ALL SKIN.

Don’t get me wrong, they were SUPER soft and you still got the fact that the entire thing was made of marshmallow, but the smaller size made the ratio of inside soft marshmallow to outside marshmallow skin LESS – and so I got more of what I liked, the OUTSIDE.  Winner winner chicken dinner!

And flavor wise, these were nice and tasty.  I mean, it’s candy, and it tastes artificial, but I was ready for that.  The chocolate creme ones were heavy in cocoa flavor, so the resultant Peep had a nice choco-marshmallow taste, while the strawberry ones had plenty of fruity flavor with some nice acidic sour notes here and there to make you think the flavor is more real than it is.  And I was right – eaten together, these were a tasty combo.

If you’re a Peeps fan, I think you’ll really like these, I really do.  I certainly was surprised by them.  I mean, if you’re looking for awesome strawberry or chocolate flavor, go eat those things.  But if you’re curious about these, I say give them a shot.

PURCHASED AT: Safeway

COST: $3.49 retail but I got them for $1.80 with coupons.  BOOM.

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