Food Should Taste Good: Falafel Tortilla Chips

After working three hours of approved OT to get caught up on some work (and not feeling like I made any progress), I wanted food. Last time I ate was around 1:30pm-ish, and by the time I got out of work, it was 8pm. I decided to head home with a pit stop at Whole Foods to make one of my usual salads.

I ended up perusing the store (thank gawd there was only an hour left to them being open else I would have bought more things), and being in a chippy-dippy kind of mood, I got some dip (Hope Foods Organic Hope Dips - Curry Lentil Dip) and then headed to the chip aisle. I was trying to find something that would go with the dip I was also trying out.

Since I couldn't narrow it down to one bag, I bought two - one of which were falafel chips. That's right. You heard me. FALAFEL.

Now I love me some falafel. My habit at the Falafel's Drive-In is to get falafel, hummus, and pita. I either spread the hummus inside the pita and add some falafel OR I mash the falafel into the hummus and then spread into the pita. Either way, it's delicious.

And I've tried other chips that are made out of things other than your traditional potato or corn. Love veggie chips. So when I saw this, I thought, "Okay, you've piqued my interest."

Immediately when you take a chip out of the bag, it SMELLS like falafel (so good). I kept sniffing the same chip over and over again thinking "What sorcery has created such a treat?" The front of the bag says that they're made with chick peas, onion, coriander, cumin, parsley and garlic. Popping a chip in my mouth, I found that the chip is thinner than a regular potato or tortilla chip, but it's pretty damn tasty.

I used to be a person that needed my chip to have flavor meaning I never did plain. I wasn't a big regular potato chip or tortilla chip person. If it wasn't BBQ or some other flavor, I needed dip or I wouldn't eat it. Nowadays, they make chips that are essentially "plain" but taste AMAZING! This is a chip I could eat the whole bag of. (Yes, I know. I'm a pig.)

Their suggestions on the back of the bag say they go best alone or with Olive Tapenade, Tzatziki Dip, and/or Feta Cheese. It went great with the dip I had. I'll write about that in a different post.

Would I Ever Try This Again?: Of course. I've had a few flavors from this brand before and have found them all tasty. Falafel is a definite yum yum plus!

Distributed by:

Food Should Taste Good, Inc.
PO Box 18932
Denver, CO 80218 USA
1-877-588-3784
http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com/
http://www.foodshouldtastegood.com/products/tortilla/falafel

Delish Dark & Twisted Lemon & Black Pepper Dark Chocolate

Picture courtesy of me, my iPhone and filter apps. :)

One night I headed to Walgreen's to pick up some things allergy meds and a bag of candy for my candy bucket at work (it was running low, and I was wanting some back stock to top off the bucket). When I got to the candy aisle, I saw the usual chocolate bars - which I am a fan of don't get me wrong, but they were advertising the same old thing, and I can get that anywhere really. Then I saw this little guy and thought I haven't seen you before. 

Most of the time I see chocolate bars advertising that they're just chocolate with this much cacao and so on, and that's fine, but after a while they all start looking the same to me. So when I saw Lemon & Black Pepper, I thought Okay, I'll give you a go.

So you open the box-type packaging and find the giant foil wrapped chocolate which brings me back to my Hershey Bar and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Wonka Bar days. When you open the foil, the chocolate is similar to a Hershey bar meaning it's divided into sections, but instead of the little Hershey stamped rectangles, you have giant blank squares (equivalent - at best guess - to four little Hershey rectangles) giving you eight squares in total.

I broke off a couple and ate one, and at first, it just smelled like chocolate and tasted like chocolate. There was a bit of a crunch to it, and I assumed that had to be the pepper, but the lemon came in at the latter half for a nice finish.

Overall you get mainly chocolate with hints of black pepper - I think you can see some in the grain when you break a piece in half - but there is no physical trace of lemon like zest, at least that I can see.

Well done chocolate. I like you.

Would I Ever Try This Again?: Yes. The fusion of the flavors isn't overwhelming that you forget what you're eating or make a "What the hell is that?" face. Overall, it's a nice, tasty treat, and I can't help but wonder what it would taste like in a s'mores.

Distributed by
Walgreens Co.
200 Wilmot Rd.
Deerfield, IL 60015

Walgreens.com
http://www.walgreens.com/search/results.jsp?Ntt=lemon+and+black+pepper

Macaroons (from Whole Foods)

So there I was... minding my own business... stopping by one of my favorite places (Whole Foods) to get a little salad to nosh on the way home, and I was being a good little girl and then I saw the cookie trolley - this cart that has all these bulk candy-type bins each filled with a yummy baked sweet treat.

I was fine, willpower in check, when I walked around it with that "No thank you, kind Sir, I shall not have any of you today" attitude and then I saw the most delicious thing ever... and in four different versions. I remember swearing as my feet brought to the trolley, and I picked up one of each (which were each one and a half to two times the size of a golf ball).

Damn you Whole Foods! Deliciously damn you devils!

*sings* I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...

The first delicious treat we have is the good old fashioned coconut macaroon.

Oh you heavenly yummy creature you. You have given me so much joy over the years from various bakeries all over. I've even had you in cookie form. I have baked you for many cookie exchanges over the holidays. You are by bar one of my favorite tasty treats.

*sings* Do you like pina coladas...???!!!

Next up we have the pina colada macaroon. I can vaguely taste the pineapple in it. There are very few small chunks of (crushed) pineapple so it leaves me to think that there might be some pineapple extract added perhaps? And the icing is just sweetness overload. Dear gawd man. I'm a big girl already. LOL!

The lyric "She's my cherry pie" doesn't fit here, so I got nothing.

Third up on the tasting block is the cherry chocolate chip coconut macaroon. Duuuuude!!! Right away you get the taste of the cherry. The insides of the macaroon is a little darker than a plain coconut macaroon so I'm thinking either brown sugar was used or the chocolate chips and cherry slightly dyed this little guy, but it doesn't matter. Why? Cuz it's AMAZING!!!

HarryBurns: ... but I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie!

Lastly we have the one I was saving for last - the caramel pecan macaroon. Now since I'm obsessing over macaroons, y'all can pretty much guess I LOVE coconut, but another dessert that I love is pecan pie, and I never thought to put pecan and coconut together. (WHAT?! I know, right?!) Don't mind me, I just had a moment. OMFG!!! The pecans aren't crunchy - probably because they were soaked in the mixture and then baked in - but there is a distinctive pecan flavor, and the caramel is really tasty, too.

*******

Would I Ever Try This Again?: ABSO-FRAKKIN-LUTELY!!! I don't know why it never occurred to me to mix flavors. I mean, when I baked my own, sometimes I'd switch out vanilla extract for coconut extract or I even added chocolate chips at one point, but jimineychristmasman!!! This stuff is yum-yum-doodle-yumscious!!!  -- Overall, they were all pretty tasty, but they are all admittedly really sweet since they're basically sugar, coconut, egg white and vanilla extract, so if you can't take "too sweet" things or don't like coconut, these bad boys aren't for you. (But they're definitely for me!)

Macaroons purchased at:

Whole Foods Market
20955 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino, CA 95014