Trader Joe's Organic Milk Chocolate Covered Mini Peanut Butter Crackers

Waaaay back in the day (I am talking about when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), my parents had a large business. And in their office, they had what the adult me realizes was a really kick ass break room. To eight-year-old me, the highlight of going to work with them was the fact that said break room was equipped with a candy machine. Yeah, I realize parental bonding maybe should have been higher on the list, but let's be honest: it was all about the candy.

Inside said machine were packages of peanut butter crackers. Some of them were the bright orange "cheese" style crackers, and some of them were the butter cracker style. I loved them regardless (although I did prefer the "cheese"). I still like peanut butter crackers in my old age. And when I saw this chocolate covered version at Trader Joe's, I had to try them.



Not only are they chocolate covered, they are also organic -- so if it makes you feel better about eating something sweet, well there you go.

Each little cracker is roughly the size of a U.S. quarter. The sandwich style cracker is enrobed in a surprisingly thick layer of chocolate. The cracker itself reminds me more of a saltine than the butter cracker I was expecting, but I actually liked that. I probably would have liked the butter cracker more, but this way the cracker adds crunch without its flavor competing with the chocolate or the peanut butter.



The chocolate itself is decent. It's very smooth and creamy and cool on the tongue. In terms of flavor, it's not bad. It could be better, tough -- it's a little too sweet, and tastes more like milk that is flavored with chocolate than actual milk chocolate. I wouldn't eat an entire bar of this chocolate, but it works well enough with the snack as a whole.



The peanut butter is just sort of sad. It's super smooth -- which is good, but it's really bland. It's a little too sweet (notice a theme?), it's not really salty, and there is no sense of the nuts ever having been roasted. It's more like the idea of peanut butter rather than real peanut butter, if that makes any sense.

It's not that these are a bad snack. If anything they are just sort of "meh." I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid them. But nor would I be excited to have some offered to me, or to see them on sale (as this container was).



PURCHASED FROM:
Trader Joe's

PRICE:
$0.99

CALORIES:
230 calories per 9 pieces.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains peanuts. Made on equipment shared with eggs and tree nuts.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
traderjoes.com

Fudge Covered Ritz Crackers (Limited Edition)

All right, I admit it. After reading Marvo's review of the new Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ritz Crackers, I had blogger envy and went on a trip to my local Wally World to try to find them for myself.

I didn't find the Brown Sugar Cinnamon variety...but I did find the limited edition Fudge Covered! Yes, people, this review is packing some fudge (oh, come on, you knew at some point in this review my inner twelve-year-old was going to come out).



If you think about it, a fudge covered Ritz cracker ought to be pretty darn good. Ritz crackers are buttery and salty -- both tastes that pair quite nicely with chocolate/fudge. I also happen to be a huge fan of chocolate covered matzo, so I thought this might be an extension of that love.



According to Marvo, the Brown Sugar Cinnamon version only has the cinnamon and sugar on one side. So that's what I was expecting with this version. As it turned out, the crackers are fully enrobed. The fudge layer is quite thin, granted, but it covers completely.

The fudge itself has a very light, milk chocolate color. It is very sweet and only vaguely cocoa flavored. And it's oily, too. (There is a lot of oil in them, so this is no surprise.) Based on the package illustration, I thought it would be a little darker. Actually, I wish it really had been a dark chocolate. I think dark chocolate or darker fudge pair better with savory items.

I had had high hopes for the cracker. I expected that the rich, buttery, salty crunch of the Ritz cracker would cut through the fudge. Sadly, that never came. And oddly enough, the crackers seemed neither buttery nor salty as one would expect. In fact, it tasted exactly like a Keebler Fudge Stripe cookie. It's not that this is a bad thing per se, particularly if you really love Keebler Fudge Stripes -- it's just that they sucked everything out of it that could have made it distinctive. The crackers aren't even that crunchy, for crying out loud! Makes you wonder what the point of this effort was.

Bland, boring, and completely forgettable.



PURCHASED FROM:
Wal*Mart

Glico Pretz- Basil

Sometimes even I would prefer a salty snack. Pretz are the savory cousin to Japan's popular world over treat Pocky (I am a Pocky addict)
Pretz much like Pocky comes in just about any flavor you could possibly imagine. I'd like to thank my friends over at JLIST.Com for sending me out this pouch of Basil Pretz to try.

I looooove me some basil. I grow it on my balcony and I have been known to eat it straight off the plant. It is a MUST for me in my pasta sauce and in general I love it in every thing. So eating a cracker flavored with basil should be a slam dunk right?

Opening the pouch the scent that greets you is a salty dried basil smell- off to a good start!

Each stick varies in length a little bit but generally they are about the size of a pretzel stick.

Each stick is speckled with little flacks of basil. The taste is salty and there's almost a poultry seasoning type flavor but the basil stands out as the dominate flavor by far. It's so vibrant that if you didn't know better you should easily pretend that it is fresh basil. The cracker that actually makes up the stick is neutral without much of a flavor of it's own- which works out perfectly because nothing stands in the way of the basil. Yes, they are salty but it just enhances the basil and makes you want to eat more.

These are just great snacks. Besides eating them straight from the pouch I could think of tons of ways to use them- I am dying to get another bag to crush into "breadcrumbs" to make meat balls with!

an 11!

PURCHASED FROM:
Provided by Jlist.com

Glico Cratz- Alpen Salz and Chicken Flavor

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