Vote up the absurd edibles no one needs, even if they're in a hurry.
While gourmet meals are always a special treat, sometimes food is just about convenience. Not everyone has the time or the money to spend hours preparing their favorite dish night after night. For those moments when you just want to whip something together quickly, the grocery store provides plenty of easy options that can create a meal in minutes.
Unfortunately, sometimes that convenience goes a little too far. Canned foods are great for putting together a quick meal, but if there's one thing we've learned from Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken, it's that not every food should be stuffed into a tiny receptacle. Convenience can easily cross the line into ridiculousness, and there are plenty of foods out there that fit that description.
Spray whipped cream, spray cheese, and now spray... pancakes? Meet Batter Blaster - a convenient spray can of pancake and waffle batter. Batter Blaster is the brainchild of Sean O'Connor, who realized there must be a better way to put breakfast food together after he wrecked the kitchen making a waffle for his wife.
Odd as it is, Batter Blaster captured the attention of foodies everywhere. Although the batter was undeniably convenient, the food produced by the canned mixture wasn't quite up to par with the real thing. Some critics claim the batter doesn't rise or brown like the non-canned variety, and the resulting breakfast foods are spongy and rubbery. Some compare them to the quality of frozen pancakes, though most concede that they are entirely edible.
Although the product spoke strongly to sweet dads who wanted to make the perfect meal for their kids, Batter Blaster went under in 2012. For better or worse, the easy pancake mix is no more.
Cereal is perhaps the easiest breakfast to whip together. You simply pour your brand of choice into a bowl, add some milk, and dig in. It doesn't get much simpler than that. However, Kellogg's decided that there was, in fact, a way to make breakfast better.
Rather than combining separate cereal and milk, Kellogg's created a single-serving package that included cereal, milk, a plastic spoon, and a bowl that it dubbed Breakfast Mates. It was touted as a breakfast with no preparation and no cleanup. By eliminating the tiresome task of walking to the cupboard, grabbing your own bowl, and washing your dishes afterward, Kellogg's expected to create the next big thing in breakfast.
Unfortunately, Breakfast Mates were a flop. Since you have to individually unwrap every element of the Breakfast Mate, you don't actually save yourself any time. Most disturbing, however, was the inclusion of warm, pre-packaged milk in the cereal. The lack of fresh milk was a major turnoff for most cereal-lovers, and Breakfast Mates were discontinued only a year after they were released.
In order to remedy the problem of the outside of the bread, Smucker's created Uncrustables. This circular sandwich cuts out the crust and pinches the bread together at the side to create a closed pocket with filling inside. The most popular filling is peanut butter and jelly, but other Uncrustables concoctions include peanut butter and honey and a chocolate-filled hazelnut spread.
Uncrustables are a favorite meal for picky kids who refuse to expand their limited taste buds. It's silly, but in terms of eliminating that pesky crust, Uncrustables actually does a pretty good job.
They're still available for purchase and are quite popular, especially for busy moms and picky kids.
What pairs well with frozen pizza? According to DiGiorno, an entire tray of cookies. To make your evening in even easier, DiGiorno created a combo box that included a full frozen pizza and a batch of Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough.
Although frozen pizza and frozen chocolate chip cookie dough are often steps away from each other at the grocery store anyway, DiGiorno felt that combining these products would result in major sales. Unfortunately, buying pizza and cookies in the same box is weirdly unappetizing, especially if you're trying to feel even a little healthy.
The product lived a short life and is no longer available for purchase.
Each jar of Smucker's Goober Grape PB&J Stripes houses both peanut butter and jelly in separate stripes that can then be used to create the perfect sandwich.
That's the sales pitch, but is it really so difficult to get separate jars of peanut butter and jelly? And is the convenience of a single jar worth the goopy mess the peanut-butter-jelly mixture will inevitably become?
It must be, since this product is thriving and readily available on your local grocery store shelves.
The Candwich is described as a "go anywhere, anytime" meal. It comes in a receptacle that looks like a soda can, and when you pop off the top, you can indulge in one of three fully formed sandwiches: PB&J, Chocolate Filled French Toast, or Honey BBQ.
Surprisingly enough, the brave people who have actually tried Candwich don't have terrible things to say. To sum it all up, it's not the best sandwich in the world, but it's not as bad as you'd imagine.
Apparently, Candwich is still chugging along, trying to make the dream of canned sandwiches a reality. However, issues with funding and the fact that no one wants to eat a sandwich from a can has resulted in quite a few road bumps that have stopped Candwich from becoming a mainstream success.
