The Paranoid Mom Reviews New Products: Stove Top Quick Cups

Stove Top Quick Cup, Chicken Flavor

I love Thanksgiving, both because I am a mom and it gives me an opportunity to express love through food and because I love stuffing. Or, as it is properly called dressing. You don’t really need to stuff anything, it’s a nice touch, but dressing is fine baked in a huge casserole dish all on its own. Especially if it’s cornbread dressing and is prone to forming wonderfully crunchy bits at the corners and top.

So, I was more than a bit perplexed and distressed by Stove Top Quick Cups. You can certainly eat stuffing alone but only after you’ve had it with a huge gang of people, that’s what stuffing is all about, family and gatherings. You might not like your family or gathering with them, but that’s the price you pay to get to eat the leftover stuffing. Making it in individual sizes defeats the whole purpose and is not something this mom can support.

According to the Kraft website Quick Cups are the right size for a hearty lunch anywhere or as a complement to any meal. Were people really clamoring for a Stove Top Stuffing they could keep in their desk at work? Wasn’t the canister the solution to people who only needed a little bit of stuffing (Who are these people anyway? Who doesn’t want lots of leftover stuffing)? Did they just have a lot of leftover containers from making Hamburger Helper Cups and said “What the hey, let’s just put everything we make in a cup!”?

When I told a friend of mine I was going to try it and clarified what it was, she said it sounded like a particularly nasty viral YouTube video. I only wish that it were my friends, it would be more wholesome and palatable.

You make it by pouring in cold water to the fill line, nuking, stirring and then eat. No oven is involved, thus no crunchy bits. There is something wrong and ineffably sad with stuffing sans crunchy bits. That’s just bread mush! Maybe it’s good for people with no teeth? I don’t know and I hardly think we should give up our crunchy bits because a few people have no teeth.

The taste is like you poured water on dry, not very good bread with a lot of salt added. That’s the flavor, salt. MSG. Chikn. The texture is slimy. It is most certainly not hearty or complementary to anything. After cooling and stirring around a bit more, it looks like congealed vomit (no picture, sorry). If this product catches on and is fed to our youth, I weep for the future of America because we’re one step closer to Soylent Green if we accept this crap as food.

Tagged as: soylent green, stove top stuffing quick cups, the paranoid mom