Oh, gross.

If you read food blogs, especially diet ones, you've likely read Hungry Girl. Hungry Girl has some good ideas but uses TONS of processed foods, LOTS of Splenda, and mystery products I've never seen in grocery stores, so I rarely actually use her recipies. (NOT a fan of splenda)

Today, at Hy-vee, I found one of the mystery products: Tofu Shirataki noodles made by House Foods Every pasta-swap HG raves about these noodles, and they feature her logo on the back. I was excited to see them, because I am a noodle-aholic. They cost $2.19 for a 2 serving bag, but it looks like 1 serving to me, and I got the "spaghetti" size. I could not wait to try them, so I decided to prepare them tonight. The full bag: only 20 calories.

I decided to make them for dinner, and even though she recommends cream sauces most of the time (not all the time, she has some red sauce recipes) I prepared them the way I eat 90% of my noodles "Shanna Style": cook noodles, add tomato sauce. (Like Hunt's tomato sauce, not a spaghetti sauce). For more flavor I added pepper and paremesan cheese.

Let's back up a step; before I could "cook" these (they are pre-cooked and microwaving takes 1 minute) I had to prepare them. First cut open the package, drain and rinse. Okay, no problem. OMG- disgusting. These noodles REEK of fish. It is disgusting smelling. Like a bait shop. I am not exagerating. GROSS. They are tofu noodles with yam flour. I'm not sure how either of these ingredients gets a fish smell. So I rinse them in a colander and then pat them dry. Everything I read said to get them REALLY dry. (One site recommended a blow dryer). I used about 10 paper towels. (Between the rinsing, the paper towels and the plastic packaging, these aren't really going down well with tree hugger me.) Then I stuck them in the microwave for 30 seconds, and then another 30 with sauce.

The taste test: 1 took 1 bite, and even though the fish smell was gone, they tasted like eating fish. Disgusting. I actually spit it out. I tried another, and I also could not choke it down. They are also very chewy and difficult to break with your teeth. I will not buy these again.

(Kevin tried them and said "they don't taste like fish to me")

Having read more reviews it seems they do well in Asian dishes like Miso soup or shrimp stir-frys, things with a fishy background to begin with, and things I don't eat anyway.

Two thumbs DOWN, and $2.19 into the trash.

(Okay- Kevin made a shrimp stir-fry with the rest of them and I asked him what they thought. His response "They're...not...great... they don't taste like anything but chewyness")