Sally's Dark Chocolae Pecans - Cor Parve

The lable is orange with a hint of pink and the brand is officially "Sally's The Fresh and Tasty Snack" and the product is their dark chocolate pecans. I found this special treat on the nut and dried fruit display at the Kosher Sobey's grocery store in Thornhill, Ontario. I'm not sure how widely distributed these chocolate covered nuts are, but if you find them buy them.

I'm always a little hesitant when it comes to parve chocolate. Many times it is simply bitter sweet chocolate that overwhelms ones mouth. In this case, the chocolate is semi-sweet and compliments the large pieces of pecans perfectly.

I tried to find out more, but there is no web site listed on the packaging and a search of web didn't turn up Sally's web site. So all I can suggest if you're interested in purchasing the dark chocolate pecans, and you don't live in Thornhill or the Greater Toronto area then check your packaging as I suspect that these were simply private labeled for the local market as the packaging states "Product of USA" and that they were packed in Canada.

Sha Sha Organic Spelt Lemon Snaps - U Parve

Last week while at the grocery store I accidentally tossed in a package of ShaSha Organic Spelt Lemon Snaps in the shopping cart instead of the usual Spelt Ginger Snaps. This error wasn't discovered until I got home and started unpacking the groceries.

Being the lazy person I am, I wasn't about to return to the store to exchange them, so instead I opened them up and gave them a taste. All that I can say is I'm glad I did.

The taste that spread across my mouth was wonderful and oh so enjoyable and the treat even started before I tasted them. When I first examine one of the Lemon snaps, I saw tiny little black specs. Could it be, a quick check of the ingredients confirmed it, these were indeed organic poppy seeds. One thing we all love about ShaSha snaps in my household are the all organic ingredients of the snaps. The lemon flavor didn't come from some chemical, but instead from Natural Dehydrated Lemon Flavour and the sweetness comes from a combination of organic evaporated cane juice and organic honey.

The initial taste is of a strong lemon flavor (bordering on a bit too strong - similar to a lemon pie) and after just a few seconds, one can taste the subtle flavor of the poppy seeds. The snaps have a great crunch and go nicely with a cup of hot tea.

Overall the Lemon Snaps are enjoyable and make for a nice change to the ShaSha Ginger Snaps that I still prefer. As such, I can only rate them 4.5 out of 5. Of course, if you generally prefer lemon snaps over ginger snaps then you might rate them the other way around.

Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Cereal Bars – Kd

For a healthy snack, the Kellogg Nutri-Grain cereal bars are a very clever choice. They have many great flavours, they have zero transfat, and they fit well into lunch boxes or plastic containers.

As a kid, I grew up on these bars; they were always in my lunch box, or the thing to nosh on if I was still hungry. As previously mentioned, they fit great in lunchboxes and if you are packing for a picnic or a trip in the car each bar is packaged and for the most part durable.

A great thing with these cereal bars is the wide variety of flavours, so you can switch things up and not have to worry about not liking a particular flavour. Flavours include: Apple Cinnamon, Blueberry, Cherry, Mixed Berry, Raspberry, and Strawberry.

Depending on the flavour nutritional information differs slightly, but overall one Nutri-Grain cereal bar is a 37g serving size with 140 calories, 0 Trans fat, and 1 gram of protein. Vitamin count is really good on these bars as would be expected. Vitamin count includes Vitamin A, Calcium, Thiamin, Niacin, Folic Acid, Iron, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, and Zinc.

The Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bars are Dairy, and they contain Wheat, Milk, and Soy Ingredients. But to be fair, they are cereal bars, so you sort of expect this to be the case.

For more information about the Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain cereal bars, see the website at http://www.nutri-grain.com/CerealBars.html or to view the entire Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain line up of products go to http://www.nutri-grain.com/, besides the cereal bars, Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain also makes Fruit & nut bars and Yogurt bars. So they are quite focused on the snack side.
Food awards are always tricky to decide if they mean anything, every food seems to have won some sort of award or many, but the Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Cereal Bars are the recipients of the American Culinary ChefsBest Award for Best Taste.

As I mentioned before, I grew up on these things and there is always at least two boxes of them in my house at all times. They taste great, they are great nosh, they are nutritious, and they fit in a lunch box. In all fair warning, if packed in too tightly they have a habit of turning into mush, but the mush tastes the same and because the jam is thick, even as mush they are easy to eat.

Rating 4.5 out of 5

Soyrizo Meatless Soy Chorizo - KSA Parve

Discovered the Soyrizo Meatless Soy Chorizo (produced by Frieda's Inc.) while vacationing in Florida at the Kissimme Super Wallmart in the fresh produce section.

Soyrizo come unfrozen vacuum packed with two large chorizo in the package. To prepare them you simply need to remove them from the packaging and then you have remove the plastic sausage casing before cooking them up in a lightly oiled frying pan. Removing them from their casing proved a bit difficult and one of the two chorizo got a bit squished.

Because the casing were removed, both sausages quickly started loosing their shape, so I cut them into smaller sections which helped a bit. Once cooked all the way through it was time for tasting. Of course, you could simply break it all up and cook it up like ground beef if you prefer.

For once, I discovered a soy based sausage that didn't taste like a soy hot dog or any other soy product. The color was dark and the taste was exceptional. There was just the right amount of heat (some on the meek side might find them a bit spicy) and the texture was fantastic. The two large sausages proved a bit much so we had about a half a chorizo left over for the following day. The next day we added it to some vegetarian chili and it worked wonderfully.

From a nutritional perspective, the Soyrizo are high on fat. According to the label the package contains six portions (more likely it would work well for 3-4 adults) and each portion contains 9g of fat. Fortunately, this is not trans fat. They were also a bit high on the sodium side (but what sausage isn't). On the positive side of nutrition each portion contains 10% of daily requirements of iron and 6% of daily requirements of calcium.

We rate Soyrizo a 4.5 out of 5. It would have scored a 5 out 5 if the sausage casing used was an edible casing instead of a plastic casing which had to be removed prior to cooking.

Anderson Braided Twists Honey Wheat - U Parve

We stumbled on the (for a lack of a better phrase pretzels/crackers/bread sticks) Braided Twists Honey Wheat a few months back. Most of us in my household love honey, so when I spotted them on the grocery shelve I tossed it into the shopping cart.

When we got home and opened the package, we could stop eating them. At one dinner with company, we put them out along with various dips, and most of the guest just started eating them plain. The positive comments were overwhelming and the braided twists score a home run.

So it is clear that the Braid Twists Honey Wheat taste great, but what about the nutritional side of the equation. Well there isn't much to them, nor did we expect a great health benefit. So it came as no surprise that there isn't one. The good news is there really isn't anything in them that is harmful (except for a few calories). They contain ZERO trans fat and only 1g of fat and 11o calories for about 10 sticks.

The above pictures shows a large jar (23 oz), we managed to buy them in a 10 0z bag. So if you're interested in trying this delicious treat, but are scared you might not love them as much as we have, then look for the smaller bag at your grocer.

So our rating is a 5 out of 5.