Review Bunker is a review blog where the goal is simply to review everything. Below are the latest reviews. In the About section you can read more about this blog and it's author. Comments are always appreciated, so if you've got something to say, please feel free!
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Archive for December, 2007
I have made a few changes to site structure this evening that you might want to check out. I expanded the “Contribute” page to include information about how anyone interested could possibly be a guest reviewer on Review Bunker. I also modified the blog feedback page to be a more general “Get Reviewed” page - in addition to the blog feedback information and waiting list, I now have instructions for what to do if you have a product or service that you would like to have reviewed on Review Bunker - check these out if either of them sounds interesting to you.
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Ingredients:
1 can (14 oz) of quartered artichoke hearts
1 bar of cream cheese
3 ounces of shredded parmesan cheese
1/2 cup of caesar dressing
A dash of red pepper sauce
Directions:
- Chop up artichoke hearts, and cube cream cheese.
- Put all ingredients together in slow cooker, and cook on low for 2-3 hours.
- Serve with sliced baguette bread.
Results:
I prepared this recipe that was found in a grocery store cook-book for a holiday party that I held a few weeks ago. My guests were generally wary at first, but once I had forced each of them to try this dip, it went quite quickly and it was the only thing served at the party to be completely cleaned out. It was very easy to prepare, taking only a few minutes to get everything into the slow cooker and ready to go. The ingredients were a bit expensive, since I had to buy a whole bottle of caesar dressing, and a bag of cheese (which seems to be going the same way as gasoline prices these days), as well as somewhat pricey canned artichoke hearts. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.
I generally enjoy artichoke dips, but I particularly liked this one, and I don’t think it was just because I was the genius who found the recipe and decided to make it. The added caesar dressing and the lack of mayonnaise that is often found in this type of dip made it delicious. The very cheesy flavor and great texture also made this warm-dip recipe extra enjoyable. I didn’t taste any of the red pepper sauce, and I might add more next time I make this, but it might have enhanced the flavor anyway. I doubled the recipe, and would recommend that anyone planning to serve this recipe to a group of people do the same thing. The only thing missing, that is generally found paired with artichokes, was spinach - I am not sure if the addition of spinach would have enhanced this recipe at all, but it might be worth a try on my next go around.
Caesar Artichoke Dip Recipe: 
4/5
4/5
If you end up trying this recipe, please tell me how it turns out! Also, if you have a favorite dip or holiday hors duvors, I would love to hear about it, possibly try it, and maybe even review it, just post me a comment.
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We recently tried another of the Banquet crock-pot classics meals with our new slow cooker. This time we tried the Hearty Beef and Vegetables recipe.
Once again, the directions were almost too easy, I put in less than five minutes of preparation time in the morning, and I came home to a house that smelled like a delicious beef stew later that night. This is a dangerous product, as it is making me increasingly lazy with each meal I prepare, but it is making me feel like I accomplished a great culinary feat at the same time; a formula that doesn’t often work out. If we don’t watch out, we may very well be dependent on Banquet crock-pot meals for dinner-time sustenance for all eternity. Luckily for us, banquet has at least two crock pot meals that I personally know are tasty, and I have a hunch that the rest of the “crock-pot classics” line will follow suit (look for more reviews in the future!).
This meal had almost the exact same preparation steps as the herb chicken and rice recipe; I put water and a sauce packet in the slow cooker, followed by the bag of vegetables and meat, and left it to cook on low for 8+ hours. Once I got home from work, I added the bag of red potatoes, turned the cooker to high, and waited 35 minutes for the potatoes to cook. The only problem encountered with this meal was that after 35 minutes of cooking on high, the potatoes were pretty far from being done, and they required more cook time to lose their crunchiness. If you end up getting this meal, I would suggest cooking the potatoes for at least 50 minutes just to make sure they are done (of course, I imagine things can vary from one cooker to another).
This meal was good, but not as unique as the first “classics” recipe we tried. I found it to taste like most other beef stew style recipes I have had in the past, but that is all I was expecting. The beef chunks seemed to be quality meat, and after being cooked all day they were very tender and juicy. The vegetables all turned out well after the potatoes had their extra time, and the sauce wasn’t half bad. One of the big pluses that we’ve found with both meals we’ve tried so far is, they turn out great as left-overs. Generally my girlfriend avoids left-overs due to the decreased quality of the food after sitting in the fridge for a while, but both of these meals has reheated as a quality and easy to prepare left-over meal.
Since all of the banquet crock-pot classics meals cost the same (about $5), provide the same amount of food, and appear to be delivering quality each time I try them, I don’t see any reason to not continue to buy them. Maybe someday when I find myself dedicating more time to my meals, I can graduate beyond the pre-packaged slow cooker recipe, but for now they are working great.
Banquet Crock-pot Classics Hearty Beef and Vegetables: 4/5
4/5Anyone else slowing becoming strung-out on hearty, warm, and delicious slow cooker meals? Want to start a support group? Have a slow cooker recipe that will make banquet pre-packaged meals taste like dirt? I would like to hear from you!
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This is a “blog feedback” post. To learn more about my blog feedback category, please visit the Blog Feedback section. Below are a few reviews of other blogs. I would like to thank the blog owners for submitting their blogs for reviews.
Blog #1
Global News Blogger
http://www.globalnewsblogger.com/
First Impressions: It’s no secret that I am a fan of header images, and I think this blog could definitely use one. Some sort of visual variety in the theme would do wonders in keeping people’s interest on their first impression. The sidebars appear cluttered. I like your tag line, even though the blog premise is pretty straightforward, it helps portray right away what the content is about.
Aesthetics: I definitely find your theme to be a bit bland, but I am happy to see that it is at least not distracting, it is simple. If you can find a way to integrate a header image, that might be all you need to do to spice things up.
Your sidebars are definitely a bit cluttered, I would suggest removing a few things including the “Pages” section, as this is just a repeat from the nav found in the header. I have never found that calendars are very useful, so you might want to remove that as well. The “Meta” section isn’t useful to any of your visitors, neither is the “spam blocked” counter. You might also want to remove the badges linking to blogging community sites. A smaller “recent viewers” widget would also help clean things up.
Content: I like your content so far. I realize that you are a somewhat new blog, and you are still working on defining your blogging topics and categories, but I think it would help a lot to have something more than your own interest in the articles guiding your content. Keeping your own opinion on each article is important, and is what gives your blog a unique flavor. Even if you continue to post without more definition, as long as you use interesting articles and give your own take on things, I think you can do well. The van crash story was amusing, and definitely more interesting because you witnessed it yourself.
Overall: This is a good start to a blog, and with a bit of cleaning up and possibly a few visual enhancements, you will catch the eye of visitors much easier, and draw them in to read your content. Keep improving your article choices and writing skills, and I think you can take this blog format pretty far, especially if you are passionate about it.
Blog #2
Fresh Art
http://cindy-hesse.blogspot.com/
First Impressions: You could use a new sub-heading. Telling the users how often you plan to publish something isn’t really necessary, your posting history can tell them that easily enough - and in order to properly catch a visitor’s interest, a sub heading that explains the blog better would be great.
The almost solid blue is a little bit overwhelming.
Aesthetics: Maybe a header image designed by you, as you are an artist, would fit well at the top of your blog. At the same time, it would be nice to find (or design) a theme that fits with the new header image. If this isn’t an option for you, I would definitely recommend finding a theme with a more diverse color scheme - the blue is a nice color, but it is a bit too dark, and definitely too overwhelming.
I appreciate that you don’t have a lot of things cluttering this site, it is very straightforward and simple.
Content: I love your blog concept - having a site to publish your original art seems like a great motivational tool for getting paintings done, and it gives you a way to share your work with the world. I like how you are also selling some of the paintings and promoting the sales through this blog, this is a great idea. I have enjoyed looking at your paintings and checking out your post history. I only have one thing to suggest for improving your posts, I would like to hear more about the painting and creativity process, if possible.
Overall: Great concept, in a less than ideal setting. If you can get some of your personality and creativity into the blog theme you will be set!
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A lot of you probably have a dishwasher - if you do, you might take it for granted; I know that I did all of my life, up until the day I moved into a rental house without one.
A lot of you probably don’t have a dishwasher, and you probably hate washing dishes - one of those quintessential things that most people hate, but has to deal with occasionally (or if you don’t have a dishwasher, quite frequently). Washing every dish and piece of silverware by hand is enough to drive some people to use paper and plastic dishes for all of their meals. I didn’t go that far, but it did drive me far enough that I researched and then bought a free standing dishwasher (A.K.A. portable dishwasher), and now that I have it, I don’t think I’ll ever take a dishwasher for granted again (Thanks for the drawing of the extra happy dishwasher, Andy.)
If the term “free standing dishwasher” isn’t familiar to you, it’s basically a dishwasher on wheels, usually with a smaller capacity than one of the under-the-counter models, which can be rolled over and hooked up to your kitchen sink with an adapter anytime a load of dishes needs to be cleaned. It uses the hot water from to tap as a water source, and it drains into the sink through the same adapter.
I purchased the Danby “designer” portable dishwasher, model number DDW1805W from Walmart.com for a little more than $300. It is advertised to hold 8 place settings, and it has 7 wash programs. I was able to fit a good deal of dishes into it for my first load of dishes, but I can’t really measure my dishes in 
“place settings.” The DDW1805W seems to be setup well for a variety of dishes and dish arrangements, helping to make up for it’s small size. It is 18 inches wide, and fits pretty well anywhere I want to tuck it away in my kitchen. I doubt that I’ll ever use most of the wash settings, but it’s good to have the options. The interior of the dishwasher is stainless steel, and it seems durable. It has a water softener option, and a 3 tiered filter system. Everything about this dishwasher seems stable and well built.
Unfortunately, the faucet adapter did not work with my normal faucet aerator, and I have to use the included faucet nozzle to hook up the hose adapter. The hoses and power cord are plenty long enough, and they reach my sink with slack to spare. I used the “economic” wash cycle for my first run and it seemed to take quite a while to finish (I know it was well over an hour, but I didn’t time it), but that may have been because my kitchen sink was in-use the entire time.
The big question is of course, does it do it’s job? Thankfully, I can say that my dishes were all very clean at the end of the wash cycle, with a pleasant smell of clean dishes pervading the air. The only problem with the entire wash process was, once it was done running and I was ready to unload the dishes, I found that they weren’t quite dry yet. There was quite a bit of condensation still on the dishes and the internal walls of the dishwasher, so I was forced to leave the door open and wait a while before unloading it.
Danby Portable Dishwasher DDW1805W: 
4.5/5
4.5/5
Do you have to wash dishes by hand? Anyone own a portable dishwasher? Anyone actually like doing dishes?
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