nuts

Almost all seven year-olds love cookies.  If I let my daughter do the picking, this site would be completely about cookies, candies, and cakes.  Pamela's Products' Chocolate Walnut Biscotti was one of the choices that I let her have.  

So far, I have liked all of the Pamela's Products that I have tried.  This was no exception.  American biscotti is suppose to be a hard dry cookie that is baked twice.  The first baking cooks the ingredients, and the second baking drys the cookie out while toasting it.  Achieving this texture is one occasion where gluten free ingredients have the advantage over wheat.  

My daughter loved these because she is a big fan of chocolate.  When I tried one, it had a lot of flavor.  And like a biscotti, it had a hard bite.  I also like that the cookies were individually wrapped.  This made it easy to add to my child's lunch box as a snack.

She wants me to buy more of these.  

Just recently, there have been several Trader Joe's opening up in our area. As I walked through one for the first time, I found this gluten free granola they sell. Now I am always looking for ways to
extend my daughter's school snacks, so I gave this a try.

The flavor was very close to a traditional granola with lots of nuts and some dried fruit. I liked the flavor, and so does my eldest daughter. However, it does not have the chewiness of a traditional granola. Its texture can be best described as the light corn crunch of a corn cereal.

You might increase the chewiness of the granola by adding additional dried fruit to the mixture. The packaging states that it is loaded with fruit and nuts. Indeed it is very heavy on the nuts, and a little light on the fruit. Now adding the additional fruit will change the taste of the granola, and make it more like a crunchy fruit snack. To me, both sound really yummy.

One other thing I should mention is that I did not find this granola as filling as regular granola. It could easily be that this granola did not have any oats, and oats are known for being filling. I found myself plowing through it as fast as I would plow through a box of cereal. This is good because it shows how much I like the taste, and bad because it did not curb my hunger greatly.

This is worth buying.