Junk Food Nation, these days smoothies are everywhere. Besides retail establishments, like Jamba Juice or Robeks, every single health blog out there is extoling their own smoothie combos as the path to better health and better living.  And I enjoy smoothies too – in fact, for breakfast this morning I had a HUGE smoothie.  I like them because they remind me of milkshakes.  That’s actually the truth – I never think about the health benefits or whatever. I just like them because they remind me of milkshakes. I am a child.

But I tend to make the SAME smoothie over and over again – strawberry, banana, chocolate protein powder, almond milk, and water.  Yum yum.  Love it all day long. But I need a new smoothie to make. I WANT a new smoothie to make.

Now, I get it – “Eric, it’s the internet! Just look it up.” I KNOW, Nation, but that’s not the point. I want to know what YOU guys make, regularly. I don’t want some exotic smoothie that OOO THAT WOULD BE GOOD IF I ONLY HAD HIBISCUS TEA AND PASSIONFRUIT. No. I want to know what ghetto smoothies you guys make on a daily or semi-daily basis. What are your go-to combos that are EASY, and contain things that are readily available?

Tell me in the comments below. Bonus points if the smoothie contains less than five ingredients.  Tell me so I can go smoothie-ing all weekend long.

Today’s “junk” food: LOOKA Patisserie Gourmet Frozen Desserts!

Yeah, it’s a stretch to call gourmet desserts “junk food” but whatever – its still dessert. LOOKA Patisserie is a young division of The French Patisserie. The French Patisserie is a bakery located ten miles south of San Francisco in the scenic coastal community of Pacifica, California since 1998.  I’ve never been, but the website shows that this bakery makes some delicious things.

LOOKA Patisserie is the French Patisserie’s foray into shipping these desserts nationwide! A retail line of all natural gourmet desserts from your freezer.  SWEET.  I love gourmet desserts.

LOOKA sent me two Triple Chocolate Mousse Cakes, two Key Lime Mousse Cakes, and a box of 12 Macarons.  Num num. Let’s get into some box images first:

LOOKA Patisserie Triple Chocolate Mousse Cakes have three layers of chocolate mousse topped with chocolate shavings. Yes, sign me up.

LOOKA Patisserie Key Lime Mousse contains some great ingredients too!  Key Lime juice as the #4 ingredient? I like that.

Time to UNBOX:

So, you’re supposed to unbox these, remove all the plastic packaging, and let them sit at room temp for one hour. ONE HOUR??? I can’t wait that long. This is how they looked after about 40 minutes.

Close up on each, starting with the Key Lime Mousse Cake:

You can see from the closeups that the second picture was a partial thaw, but when I finally ate the LOOKA Patisserie Key Lime Mousse in the above picture, the surface was entirely thawed and perfectly gelatinous.

I mean, what can I say? This was delicious.  The thaw process didn’t affect the integrity of the mousse – the whole thing was soooo light and fluffy, and full of vanilla flavor. The key lime topping was citrus-y and bold, and gave the entirely dessert PLENTY of key lime flavor.  The cake disc at the bottom was forgettable, but provided the base the entire dessert needed without distracting.  The Dark chocolate rings around the outside tasted great although they fell off as soon as I cut into the dessert (as you can tell). I slurped them up like chocolate spaghetti – whatever.

Anyways, verdict: REALLY GOOD. Couldn’t tell it was frozen. Love key lime, and this delivered.

Moving on!

The LOOKA Patisserie Triple Chocolate Mousse, like the key lime variety, was SUPER FLUFFY. The first two pictures were at semi-thaw, but this last picture was at full thaw – the dessert came away like butter on my fork. Lighter than butter. Like a cloud. Really good texture.

The flavor was pretty good too – I never ate any layer separately, so the best I can say is that the chocolate flavor was well done. Like a fluffy creamy chocolate ice cream. Very, very tasty for any lovers of chocolate.

The bottom cake layer was pretty good in this one, and complemented the mousse better than the key lime one, I felt.  The dark chocolate shavings on top were as expected – firm and chocolaty.

Both the key lime and chocolate mousses were pretty good, especially for store bought frozen items. My family tried these and agreed that the Key Lime was out favorite of the two, simply because of the bolder flavor.

Macaron time? Macaron time.

So what are macarons? According to Wiki, they are: “a sweet meringue-based confection made with eggs, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powderor ground almond, and food colouring. The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two biscuits.”

Basically, it’s a small meringue cookie (light and fluffy) with some chewy stuff sandwiched in between. If you’ve had them before, you know they are DELECTABLE.  I’m stoked for these.

Ok, enough of the boring pictures. Let’s open this box up!

Holy eff, despite the one macaron being shattered, these LOOKA Patisserie Macarons LOOK AMAZING. Perfectly stored in a tray. So colorful!  Almost too cute to eat…but not that cute. Let’s nosh.

This LOOKA Patisserie Vanilla Macaron was full of vanilla flavor and sort of buttery tasting. Doctor Sis and I agreed – this had a vanilla bean flavor more than a french vanilla flavor. Really good.

My family wasn’t thrilled with the LOOKA Patisserie Raspberry Macaron, but I loved it. The Junk Food Gal and I agreed – great raspberry flavor, and with the sugar and cookie, this macaron tasted like a jelly roll!  For those who don’t know what a jelly roll is, click here.

LOOKA Patisserie Pistachio Macaron was my family’s favorite, and I could see why. It was FULL of pistachio flavor, and was there was almost an almond-mascarpone flavor to it as well.  It was also, weirdly, the chewiest of the macarons, which I felt added to the enjoyment.  Light green and perfect.

LOOKA Patisserie Chocolate Macaron was predictable and delicious – just full of light chocolate flavor.

So there you go!  I highly recommend these desserts.  Are they better than getting them fresh from your local bakery?  Debatable. But for pretty good quality in a frozen product straight to your table?  I would go for these every time.

PURCHASED AT: Buy them here, but Product Review Mom says you can also buy them at Walmart.

COST: No prices on the LOOKA website, but Product Review Mom says that the Mousse Cakes were $5 for the box of two, and the box of macarons were $8. NOT BAD.

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