Jalapeño Fiesta Snack from Graze

Photo from Graze.
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Ingredients:

jalapeno peanuts, roasted sunflower seeds, salsa almonds and roasted pumpkin seeds

I received this snack in my February Graze box.

Tea Suggestion:

I suggest an iced tea with this selection, and have plenty on hand because it’s a spicy snack!  You’ll want to refresh the palate!  When I opened this tray, I had this Whisky & Cola Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas chilling in my fridge!  A nice way to cool the tongue after eating one of those jalapeño peanuts!

What I Think:

Spicy!  The peanuts have been seasoned with “jalapeño” flavoring (although the ingredient list says that it’s cayenne, I don’t see jalapeño in the complete ingredient list), and there are quite a few peanuts in this snack mix.  The almonds have been seasoned with a “salsa” flavoring, and while there are far fewer almonds in this mix, there are enough here to amp up the zesty flavor of the mix.

There are also sunflower seeds and pumpkin seed kernels in this mix, and they aren’t flavored except with a bit of soy sauce.  They need a little salt.  Yeah, I know soy sauce has a salty flavor to it, but, I would prefer a light salting over a soy sauce coating.

My Final Thoughts:

Overall, I didn’t hate this this nutty snack mix.  I don’t know that I enjoyed it enough to “like” it on my graze account.  It’s tasty enough, but I felt as though it really could have used more salt.  I’m not usually one who needs a lot of salt on things (unlike my husband who likes a little bit of food with his salt, it seems!) but this would have been better if it was a little saltier.  Because of this, I chose to “trash” this snack.  I didn’t hate it, but, I didn’t want to receive it again either.  I like the spicy elements, but I wanted a little more contrast.  Maybe some acid (how about lime seasoned pumpkin seeds?), and definitely some more salt.

Eleanor’s Apple Crumble Snack from Graze

Photo from Graze.
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What’s In It:

raisins, cinnamon and honey almonds and apple

This snack was in my January Graze Box.

Tea Suggestion:

When I’m eating a “crumble” … I can think of no tea I’d rather have in front of me than a black tea … perhaps a warmly spiced chai?  So I chose to brew this Bourbon Chai from Vintage TeaWorks.  It’s honeyed sweetness melded wonderfully with the sweet flavors of this mix, and the spices accentuated the warm cinnamon notes of the almond.  This tea turned this snack into a dessert!

What I Think:

This is pretty good, but perhaps I’m a little spoiled on some of the previous fruit snacks that I’ve had from Graze previously, because I found myself wanting the flavor infused raisins that I’ve tried before.

The almonds are definitely my favorite part of this snack.  They are “candied” with honey and cinnamon, and that candied coating is absolutely scrumptious!

The apples and raisins are sweet.  The raisins are nice and plump golden raisins.   The apples are dried and chewy, and have a delicious, juicy taste to them.

My favorite way to enjoy this snack is to grab either a raisin or a piece of apple and eat it with an almond so that I get fruity goodness along with that delicious candied almond.  I wish there were more almonds to this!

My Final Thoughts:  

I enjoyed this snack (especially with the chai that I brewed to go with),  but I found myself wanting something a little more.  The candied almonds were delightful, but, everything else – while tasty – missed some of that excitement that I have experienced with the other snacks from Graze.  I didn’t “trash” this product, but, I didn’t like or love it either, I’ll keep it at a “try” status.

Bananas Foster Snack from Graze

Ingredients:

fudge pieces, honey almond slivers, pumpkin seeds and banana coins

I received this Bananas Foster Snack in my December Graze Box.

Tea Suggestion:

For this yummy, sweet and salty snack, I decided to go with something that was both sweet and a little bit savory:  this Genmai Hojicha from Sara’s Tea Caddie.  The warm, toasty notes of the tea accentuated the nutty notes of the almond slivers and pumpkin seeds.  A really nice tea time!

What I Think:

This snack surprised me with the very first bite.  And with that first bite, I immediately clicked on the “like” box on my Graze products page.

I sort of mindlessly grabbed a few pieces out of the tray and popped them into my mouth … and the banana – is soft!  It’s a dried banana … but it isn’t a banana chip like I thought it would be.  It’s not hard, dense and crunchy like a typical banana chip.  This is soft and chewy and delightfully banana-y!

I love the sweet and salty quality of this snack, and the varying textures: the honey almond slivers and the pumpkin seeds add a little bit of crunch.  The fudge bits and the honey from the almonds add some sweetness.  The nuts add a salty taste.  The banana adds a great banana flavor and chew to the mix.  It was chewy, crunchy, salty, savory and sweet all in one bite!

My Final Thoughts:

The more I munched on this snack, the more I enjoyed it, and by the time I finished the snack, the “like” was upgraded to “love”!  I love the different textures and the way the flavors all work together in this snack.  Yum!

Chocolate Almond Butter from Justin’s

Product Information:

What do you do when your roommates start eating all of your chocolate almond butter?  Put your name on it, like I did!  What began as a kitchen experiment has turned into the perfect combination of premium chocolate with California Almonds for a nut butter so good you’ll want to put your name on it too.

Learn more about this product here.

What I Think:

I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this stuff yet.  It’s so yummy.

For the purposes of this review, I smeared some of this nut butter on apple slices.

There is a good balance between chocolate and almond.  It’s very rich and chocolate-y, but I can still taste the delicious nutty flavor of the almond.  It is sweet, a little salty and a whole lot yummy.  This would be good on just about anything, and even better right out of the jar.

Just out of curiosity, I compared the numbers in the nutritional information of the chocolate almond butter and the classic almond butter (both from Justin’s) and the numbers are very similar.   I’m no nutritionist by any stretch of the imagination, so, I’m not going to pretend that I really know what all those numbers mean.  I don’t.  But, based on what I see, I think that if the classic almond butter can be part of a “healthy” diet, I don’t see why this product couldn’t be.  And this has chocolate in it, which makes the chocoholic in me very happy.

My Final Thoughts:

Before I tried this Chocolate Almond Butter from Justin’s, the Maple Almond was my favorite nut butter from them, but now, I’d be hard pressed to decide which one I like better.   Both are simply phenomenal.  Every product that I’ve tried thus far from Justin’s has been exceptional and this one is too.  I really can’t say enough good stuff about Justin’s nut butters (and let’s not forget their peanut butter cups!  YUM!)

Almond, Apricot, and Yoghurt Bar from Eat Natural

Photo from Love with Food.
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Product Information:

Color versus Colour? Yogurt or is it yoghurt? Well no matter how you spell it, this all natural bar takes the cake. It is a simple mix of unsulphured apricots, crunchy almonds and coconut and then topped with a smooth layer of yogurt coating.

I received one of these bars in my November Love with Food Box.

Tea Suggestions:

I brewed myself a cup of chai and turned it into a latte with Chico Chai’s Original Loose Leaf Chai.  Then I decided that this bar would make a lovely accompaniment with my chai.  The sweetness of the bar enhances the spicy notes of the chai – these two work really splendidly together!

What I Think:

Tasty!

The first thing I notice when I’m reading up on this bar is that there aren’t a lot of extraneous ingredients to it.  The yogurt coating has a few ingredients to it, and then there is just crisped rice, apricots, almonds, coconuts, honey and glucose syrup.

It is a little on the sweet side.  I am thinking that this could be tasty without the yogurt coating.  I mean, I like the yogurt just fine, and I have a sweet tooth so I’m not complaining about the sweetness of it … but I’m just saying that I don’t think it needs the yogurt coating.  It would be a tasty fruit and nut type bar without the coating.

There are lots of crunchy almonds and sweet apricots in this.  I can feel the texture of the chewy coconut.  I don’t taste too much honey or syrup in this, I like that these two sweeteners don’t overpower the bar and take away from the natural taste of the fruit and nut flavors.

My Final Thoughts:

I liked this.  This is something that if I were wanting a quick and easy snack, I’d grab one of these bars.  This is something that I wouldn’t mind having on hand for when I want something a little sweet.  I like the variety of textures within the bar – the chewy of the apricots and coconut, the crunchy of the almonds and the crispness of the rice.  Overall, a really tasty snack.

Billionaire’s Shortbread Snack Mix from Graze

Photo from Graze.
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Product Description:

fudge pieces, blanched almonds, milk chocolate drops and cranberries

I got this snack mix in my first Graze Box!

Tea Suggestion:

I went with a deliciously light, vibrant green tea to enjoy with this sweet “trail mix.”  The High Grade Dragon Well from Yezi Tea was an excellent choice.  The tea was refreshing and lightly grassy, and made a nice contrast to the sweet-tart cranberries.  The natural nutty flavors in the Dragon Well married deliciously with the blanched almonds, and the chocolate and fudge … well, they just made the tea time that much yummier!

What I Think:

I was so excited to start digging in to my snacks in my first Graze Box!  And of course the first snack I had to try has chocolate in it!

I was very interested in the Graze program when I first heard about it, mostly because I love trying gourmet foodie subscriptions like this, as well as the uniqueness of this particular program (You can’t get these mixes anywhere else … unless you make them yourself!) … but what else I really liked about this program was that the kind of snacks that it offers is exactly what I was looking for … something healthy to snack on while sipping on tea.  Because I drink a lot of tea.  A lot of it … and I like to find foods that are healthy and easy to snack on while I sip the tea.  Something tasty and preferably, something I didn’t have to make myself.  (Big bonus points for that one.)

This “trail mix” has four ingredients:  blanched almonds, dried cranberries, chocolate drops and fudge bits.  I would say that in my tray, all four ingredients were fairly represented.  I didn’t see like 75% of one ingredient, and scarce little bits of other ingredients.  

It’s a tasty combination of flavors.  When each item is eaten individually, the ingredient I like least is the blanched almonds, mostly because they’re blanched almonds, and I prefer my almonds toasted, roasted, salted … but not so much blanched.  Even so, these aren’t that bad, especially if I happen to scoop up one of the other ingredients and pop both the almond and one other ingredient in my mouth at the same time and allow the flavors to meld together.  My personal favorite with the almond is the cranberry.

But what’s really delightful is if I pick up one of each item in the mix and pop all four ingredients in my mouth at the same time. The combination of these four ingredients at the same time is quite tasty.

The cranberry is tart and chewy.  The fudge is sweet and chewy.  The chocolate is sweet and creamy.  The almond is nutty.  It’s a tasty combination of sweet, tart, chewy and nutty with a hint of creaminess.

My Final Thoughts:

I liked this alright, but I don’t know if I like it enough to “like” it on the Graze website.   But I ‘am glad I tried it.  I like the size of these snack trays!  This is just the right amount of trail mix to satisfy me when I’ve got the munchies … it works great as a tea-time snack.

Blueberry Almond Awesome Bars

Product Description:

These Blueberry Almond granola bars are a delicious as a breakfast bar with a cup of coffee or enjoyed as a snack throughout the day. Made with organic oats, agave nectar, dried wild blueberries, almonds, flax seeds and a touch of sea salt.

I received an Awesome Bar in my March Knoshbox.

Tea Suggestion:

With a granola bar like this … I wanted something equally as wholesome and nourishing, so I went with this Green Tea Powder from Nuvola Tea!  I don’t know that the flavors here necessarily were “complementary” but I still enjoyed the combination … it was a very energizing tea time!

What I Think:

This is – indeed – pretty darned awesome!

The texture – it’s not sticky the way some soft granola bars can be.  I get every ingredient … I taste every ingredient.  The oats have almost a nutty, toasted quality to them.  I taste almond, I taste blueberry, I taste the thin chocolate coating on the bottom of the bar.  The agave nectar and brown sugar provide sweetness without making for a cloying, overly sweet bar.  I can even taste the hint of sea salt.  And yes … I do taste the love that went in to these!  (Love is listed as an ingredient on the label!)

My Final Thoughts:

One of the tastiest granola bars I’ve tried.  It has a wholesome, nourishing quality to it, but it is still delicious enough to be enjoyed as a treat as well as a healthy snack.

Mighty Maca Chocolate Energy Bar from Bearded Brothers

Product Description:

Hand crafted in Austin, Texas these chocolate maca energy bars will power your next adventure. Made with 99% organic ingredients, 100% natural, raw, vegan friendly and gluten free.

I received this Energy Bar in my January Knoshbox.

Tea Suggestion:

Since this is a “raw” energy bar, I decided to go with a tea that also offers “raw energy” – a Green Tea!  (Although, I guess it could be argued that steeping is a ‘cooking’ process, right?)  I chose Blissful Buds Green Tea from Mellow Monk.  The savory notes of the tea were a nice contrast to the sweetness that I tasted from the dates.

What I Think:

I am liking this for what it is – an energy bar.  Energy bars are not something that I eat often, mostly because I prefer “real” food to a condensed meal in bar form.  But this is tasty as far as a meal in bar form goes.

It has a chewy consistency with a seedy crunch.  I’d liken it to a fudge-y nut brownie texture … if the nuts were crushed.  As far a chocolate-y flavor, though, I’m not getting a whole lot of what the name of this bar promises.  That is to say the chocolate flavor is lacking.  If I had been given this bar “blindly” and not told that it was a chocolate energy bar, I wouldn’t have guessed that it was.  I do taste a fruit flavor though … dates?  And it has that sugary sweetness of the date.  I also taste the cinnamon and I’m liking that. I don’t taste the almond or cashew specifically … I taste a nutty flavor, but, it isn’t a distinct almond or cashew flavor.  I also taste the chia seeds … or perhaps I should say, I notice their texture.

I like that this isn’t overly sweet … I get the sweetness from the dates and from the other ingredients, but, it isn’t overly “honeyed” or sweetened with excess sweeteners.  I like that it’s organic.

My Final Thoughts:

Overall, this was decent.  I don’t know that I like it enough to want to buy it again, but, I didn’t hate it, and if I were ever asked for the name of a good energy bar, this one would be on a short list of ones that I enjoyed.

My December Petit Amuse Sample Box has Arrived!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I love how quick the Petit Amuse box arrives every month.  Just yesterday, I started to “realize” that it’s December and my mind began to wonder to what my sampler boxes might deliver this month, and already my box from Petit Amuse is here!  (and, I might sheepishly add that I’ve not even reviewed all the products that I received in last month’s box!)

You can subscribe to the Petit Amuse Sampler Box here.

Interested in subscribing? Click on the pic to go to the Petit Amuse website and subscribe!

This month’s box has only three products, but every one of them elicited some excitement from me.  The first is a jar of crystalized honey from Champlain Valley Apiaries.  I do love honey, and while I tend to prefer raw honey, and not researching this particular honey beyond what is provided to me on this month’s product card, I don’t see that it is raw … then again, I do not see that it isn’t.  I will have to research more about it before I sample it to learn more about it.

The second item was exciting because I’ve actually had this particular product in a previous Foodzie box … and it was incredibly awesome.  I still think about this Pistachio and Almond Nougat from Va De Bon Coeur (and my apologies, as I did not know it was spelled like that!  I thought it was all one word when I wrote the review last year.)  This Nougat rocks and is one of the most memorable treats I’ve ever had in a tasting box … and I’m very happy to have it again!

Finally, the third item is CHOCOLATE!  And not just any chocolate, but chocolate truffles!  Everyday Truffles from Coco Zen to be precise.  There are few sweets that make me happier than chocolate and I am already loving this chocolate, if for no other reason than the name and the packaging (a cute little tin!  I love tins!)

So needless to say, I’m really excited about each of these products.  Please watch my blog for in-depth reviews of each … except for the nougat which I won’t be reviewing since I already have!

Cinnamon Clove Bar from Simple Squares

Photo from Knoshbox. Click on the pic to go there!

Product Description:

We teamed up with Kim at Simple Squares to bring you her amazing new cinnamon clove whole food bars. They have no wheat, gluten, dairy, soy or refined sugar. They’re kosher, and make an excellent treat to snack on any time of the day.

We paired them with aged Gewurtztraminer (pronounced “Guh-vertz-tra-mean-er”), a unique white varietal which has aromatic notes of allspice, cinnamon and baked fruit. It’s concentrated color is one of the darkest you’ll see in a white wine, and when aged its cinnamon and honey flavors are amazing.

This product was part of my September Knoshbox tasting box; however, it is no longer available on Knoshbox (sold out!).  It can be purchased from Simple Squares on Amazon.

Tea Suggestion:

As this was the last product that I had left from the September Knoshbox (the Wine Pairing themed box), I decided to continue with the wine pairing theme and I selected a white wine-inspired tea to enjoy with this Cinnamon Clove bar.  I chose this White Tea Riesling from Vintage TeaWorks, and it was a stunning collaboration of flavors!  The fruity flavors of the tea really melded in a beautiful way with the spiced notes of the Simple Squares bar.

What I Think:

This isn’t the first Simple Squares product I’ve tried, I’ve been fortunate to try the Coconut Simple Squares Bar as well as the Rosemary Simple Squares Bar, so I was confident I would most likely enjoy this Cinnamon Clove Bar.

And I do!

Just like the Coconut and the Rosemary Simple Squares, these are simple bars, composed of just a few ingredients:

Organic Cashews, Organic Almonds, Organic Honey, Unsweetened Coconut, Organic Vanilla Extract, Sea Salt, Organic Ground Cinnamon, Ground Cloves.

I like that this is nutty, sweet, and warm with spice.  It has a nice crunch and a pleasant chewy consistency, and it doesn’t feel sticky as I hold it in my hands … I don’t feel like I need to run off and immediately wash my hands after finishing the bar, it doesn’t leave that sticky feeling on my fingers the way some “soft” granola bars can.

The cinnamon and clove tastes pleasantly spiced without out tasting overly spicy.  It makes a great pairing with tea, because there are some complex flavor notes that accentuate the complexity of the tea.  I’m eating this with the aforementioned tea, but, I think this would also taste great with a Darjeeling or a Dark Oolong.

My Final Thoughts:

I’ve enjoyed all the Simple Squares Bars that I’ve sampled, and this one is no exception.  In fact, this one might be my favorite yet.  I love the zesty spices that taste warm without tasting too spicy.  This is delicious and very satisfying.