fauxklore

I have plenty of other things to write about, but I wanted to close out the series of things I wrote about Graze snacks, now that they've stopped their subscription boxes in my area. (I am not sure what the boundaries of that area are, but I know they've stopped in New York, too.) I was rather annoyed that the last box contained two packets of each of four snacks, but so be it. Anyway, here are the snack reviews I hadn't posted previously.

Cocoa Cranberry Oat Squares With Superfoods: These are rolled oat flapjacks (i.e. soft granola bars) with cocoa and cranberries. Apparently, the cacao nibs are the superfood part. They have 200 calories. This was pretty tasty, though the chocolate flavor is not quite as intense as you might expect.

Cocoa Cookies with Special Blend Black Tea: These are exactly what the name suggests – two cocoa cookies, along with a tea bag of what tasted like perfectly ordinary black tea to me. They have 110 calories and 4 grams of protein. The cookies are not too sweet and a bit on the dry side, but work well with the tea. Overall, I thought this was a good afternoon snack.

Iced Cinnamon Bun: This consists of vanilla cookie drops, yogurt-coated sunflower seeds, and caramelized honey and cinnamon almonds. It has 170 calories. Anything with honey and cinnamon nuts is delicious in my book and this was no exception. All of the ingredients were good, but those cinnamon almonds were orgasmic. I marked this snack as “love.”

Cacao & Orange with Dates and Raw Almonds: This consists of chopped dates, almonds, and cacao orange fruit pieces. It has 170 calories. All of the ingredients are tasty and they blend well together. There is plenty of both chocolate and orange flavor, making this an excellent sweet snack.

Cranberry & Hazelnut Toasts with a Rich Chocolate Dip: This is exactly what the name sounds like. The toasts are twice-baked and contain things like quinoa, as well as the cranberries, hazelnuts, sugar, and flour. The dip is a thick, dark-cocoa spread. Overall, this has 130 calories. I liked it, but I thought the cocoa spread dominated the flavor to the point that I didn’t really taste the cranberries at all. Still, it’s a tasty snack and I’d be happy to get it again.

Sweet and Salty Veggie Protein Power: This consists of honey salted peanuts, edamame beans, baked salted peanuts, and unsalted roasted cashews. It has 160 calories. While each of the ingredients is something I like, the combination is kind of weird. In short, I didn’t think the honey nuts worked at all with the rest of the ingredients. I solved that by eating them separately, but that does rather defeat the purpose of a combination snack.

Apple and Carrot Defense Smoothie: This consists of apple pieces, carrot chews, blanched almonds, and raspberry and chia bites. It has 170 calories. I didn’t really care for this. The carrot chews are bland. The raspberry and chia bites don’t have a lot of raspberry flavor. All in all, the apple bits are dominant and just didn’t blend well with the other ingredients. I marked it “dislike.”

Oatmeal Cinnamon Cookies with Special Blend Black Tea: Nothing mysterious here – two oatmeal cookies, with some cinnamon flavor, along with a bag of black tea. There’s a total of 100 calories. The cookies are a bit drier than optimal but not bad. Perfectly fine, though not exciting.


Overall, I'm not really sorry to see the subscription box end, as it was a bit pricy. More to the point, it accomplished its purpose of getting me to try some things I never really ate before, like raisins and rhubarb and dates. If I really wanted to, I believe I could still order specific snacks from Graze. They do also sell at least some of their snacks at a couple of stores near me.

Chia Coconut Cookies with Special Blend Black Tea: There’s one teabag and two cookies in this snack. It has 110 calories. The tea is good, though not particularly unusual. The cookies seemed a bit drier than in the past, but it could also be my faulty memory. They’re still tasty and not super-sweet.

Sweet Rhubarb Jam: This is a mix of apple slices, rhubarb slices, and dried cranberries. It has 100 calories. This is one of my favorite Graze fruit snacks – a good mix of sweet and tart. It’s unusual combinations like this (that I would never have thought of on my own) that are a lot of why I subscribe to Graze.

Sweet Mustard Ranch: This contains pretzels, sour cream and onion cashews, and mustard breadsticks. It has 130 calories. It’s very tasty – especially if you eat all the ingredients together.

Natural Vanilla Seeds: This is a mixture of vanilla-glazed pumpkin and sunflower seeds. It has 170 calories. Wow, these are delicious! I am talking a revelatory level of goodness. Just a bit sweet, with a perfect amount of vanilla flavor. As I already said, wow!

Lightly Salted Popping Corn: This is 130 calories worth of microwave popcorn. It’s pretty much the perfect portion size and pops up quickly and thoroughly, with few orphans. I’m not sure that there’s much more to say about it.

Peanut Butter & Jelly: This is a mixture of salted peanuts, raspberry strings, and vanilla fudge. It has 220 calories. The raspberry strings are especially delicious. A good sweet snack.

Sweet Memphis Barbecue: This consists of barbecue peas, salsa peanuts, and wild rice sticks. It has 190 calories. It’s got good crunch and is pretty tasty, but I’d like it to be a bit spicier than it is. Oddly, my favorite component is the wild rice sticks, which aren’t at all spicy.

Vanilla Pear Energizer: This is a mixture of dried pear slices, vanilla pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and almonds. It has 150 calories. I like all of the components of this snack, but I don’t think they harmonize particularly well. I found myself saving the vanilla pumpkin seeds for last, as they are the most interesting.

I have a lot of things to write about (ranging from theatre-going to puzzle-solving to a new-to-me recipe to storytelling), but I am having a day of many meetings. At the very least, I can post the latest set of snack reviews:


Original Fruity Flapjack: These are soft oat granola bars with dried fruit (dates, raisins, apricots, and currants) and seeds (sunflower and pumpkin). They have 230 calories. They’re quite tasty, with a strong flavor of golden syrup. I like the texture and flavor and appreciate that these are quite filling. Flapjacks are one of the best things about Graze and this is no exception.

Jelly Doughnut: This is a mixture of vanilla cookie drops, raspberry-infused raisins, raspberry fruit strings, and almond slivers. It has 120 calories. This is a delicious sweet snack, with lots of fruit flavor. It tastes surprisingly like a jelly donut.

Snickerdoodle Dip: This is a snickerdoodle cookie dip with cinnamon pretzels to dip into it. It has 150 calories. It has good cinnamon flavor and a nice creamy texture. A good sweet snack.

Twist of Black Pepper Popping Corn: This is 130 calories worth of microwave popcorn with black pepper seasoning. It pops up quickly, with few orphans. The black pepper is a nice addition.

Caramel Apple: This consists of dried apple slices with a caramel dippling sauce. It has 80 calories. This is thoroughly delicious. There is a generous portion of the caramel, which goes perfectly with the soft, chewy apples. I could probably eat a gallon of this caramel sauce, so I am grateful for the built-in portion control. Yum.

Jalapeno Cheese Taco: This is a mixture of cheese-flavored cashews, jalapeno chickpeas, and chili broad beans. It has 140 calories. It is only mildly spicy, but still flavorful, albeit not especially taco-like. Between the taste and the crunch, it is a pretty good savory snack.

Cranberry & Hazelnut Toasts with a Rich Cocoa Dip (new): These are twice-baked toasts with cranberries, roasted hazelnuts, and black quinoa, paired with a cocoa sauce to dip them in. They have 130 calories. I liked the mixture of crunch from the toasts and sweetness from the cocoa dip, but the dip overwhelmed the flavor of the cranberries. It would also be helpful to have a couple more of the toasts, but I just ate the rest of the dip with a finger.

Maple Oat Squares with Superfood Maca (new): These are rolled oat squares with maple syrup and maca, which is apparently an Andean root vegetable. They have 200 calories. This was tasty, but the texture is drier than Graze flapjacks, and I found it less satisfying.

Berry Oat Squares: This wasn’t part of my subscription box but was bought on sale at Wegman’s. It’s two rolled oat squares with berry infused cranberries and assorted seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, and flax seeds). It has 200 calories. While it isn’t terrible, it isn’t nearly as good as Graze’s flapjacks are. The texture is much more cookie-like, instead of soft and chewy. And the flavor of the seeds is far more dominant than the flavor of the berries. I’d buy it again only if were at a very good sale price.

Summer Berry Flapjack: These are oat granola bars with raspberry and strawberry infused cranberries. They have 240 calories. I’m not sure why, but they were noticeably better than the Berry Oat Squares. The texture is chewier and the berry flavor is more distinct, probably because of the lack of seeds. Excellent.

Protein Peanut Butter Dipper: This consists of peanut butter with pretzel sticks to dip in it. It has 130 calories. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s pretty boring as snacks go.

Veggie Protein Power: This is a mixture of edamame beans, spicy chickpeas, and black pepper cashews. It has 130 calories. Given the name, I should mention that it also has 7 grams of protein. I like the crunchiness and the spiciness. It’s also one of the more filling savory snacks I’ve gotten, which is good for those long afternoons.

Peanut Butter and Jelly: This is a mixture of salted peanuts, raspberry strings, and vanilla fudge squares. It has 220 calories. This is a good mix of sweet and salty, especially if you eat all the ingredients together. The raspberry strings are particularly delicious.

Sweet & Spicy Beet Crunch: This is a combination of dried beet chips, sunflower seeds, and jalapeno chickpeas. It has 100 calories. The sunflower seeds don’t contribute much to the flavor (though they are, of course, high in protein), but the chickpeas have lots of crunch and mild spiciness. The beets are the highlight of this – crunchy, slightly sweet, and thoroughly delicious.

Vitamin E Defense: This consists of roasted hazelnuts, redskin peanuts, raisins, and dried cranberries. It has 190 calories. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn’t very exciting. It is probably the only snack I’ve ever tried which I think would benefit from having a bit of salt added.

Louisiana Wild Rice & Beans: This is a mixture of wild rice sticks and chili broad beans. It has 140 calories. I liked both components, both separately and together. I’m also glad for built-in portion control, because the wild rice sticks are the sort of thing I could easily munch on mindlessly and eat way more of than I intended to.

Peach Cobbler: This consists of almond slivers, yogurt-coated sunflower seeds, amaretti drops, and peach fruit drops. It has 160 calories. I like the combination, but want to note that both the yogurt-coated seeds and the peach fruit drops are particularly good. This was a nice summery snack.

Eleanor’s Apple Crumble: This is a mixture of soft appl pieces, raisins, and caramelized honey and cinnamon almonds. It has 110 calories. Those caramelized almonds are particularly delicious and blend well with the fruit. Overall, this is a tasty snack with just the right amount of sweetness.

Lemon Drizzle Flapjack: These are soft oat granola bars with a lemon yogurt drizzle. They have 250 calories. I’ve made no secret of my love for Graze flapjacks and these are among my very favorite. Sweet and tangy, but also filling. These are simply delicious.

Thai Sweet Chilli Dippers: This consists of soy-rice crackers with a sweet chili sauce to dip them into. It has 70 calories. It’s tasty though the sauce is a bit sweeter than I’d prefer. I do like the spiy kick it has, however.

Raspberry & Coconut Muffin: This is a mixture of raspberry-infused cranberries, almond slivers, amaretti drops, and coconut flakes. It has 140 calories. Like many of Graze’s deconstructed snacks, it works best if you eat all of the components together. It also helps if you don’t expect it to actually taste like a muffin. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually seen a muffin with coconut and any ingredient other than pineapple. At any rate, this is tasty and not too sweet, so it makes a nice accompaniment to a morning cup of tea.

Chocolate Pretzel: This consists of a chocolate hazelnut dip with poppyseed pretzel sticks to dip into it. It has 140 calories. This is one of my long-time favorite Graze snacks. If you like Nutella and things of that ilk, you are likely to feel the same way.

Spicy Veggie Protein (new): This is a mixture of chili corn, black beans, wild rice sticks, and carrot chips. It has 140 calories. It’s really “not too spicy veggie protein,” but I think it would be too spicy for some people I know. I do like things hot, so that wasn’t an issue for me. Overall, I thought this was pretty good, but a bit weird. I liked it, but there are other savory snacks I like better.

Active Nutrient Blend: This is a mixture of walnuts, chopped dates, and pumpkin seeds. It has 170 calories. Dates are one of those things I like, but rarely think of eating. This is a really nice blend, with the nuts and seeds balancing the sweetness of the dates. My only issue is that the walnuts should really be in smaller pieces, since it’s hard to eat all the ingredients together.

Sweet Memphis Barbecue: This is a mixture of salsa-flavored peanuts, BBQ-flavored peas, and wild rice sticks. It has 190 calories. It’s nicely spicy nd has plenty of crunch All in all, quite a nice savory snack.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake (new): This is a mix of almonds, raspberry fruit strings, vanilla cookie drops, and white chocolate buttons. It has 160 calories. This doesn’t really taste like cheesecake, but that is somewhat beside the point. The combination of flavors and textures works well together, especially if you eat the various components together. Admittedly, that is hard to do as the pieces of white chocolate are too big and too few. Overall, it’s a good sweet snack.

Original Fruity Flapjack: This is a soft oat granola bar with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, currants, dates, and dried apricots. It has 230 calories. Graze’s flapjacks are one of the best things about getting their snacks. The flavor of this one is dominated by golden syrup. The moist texture and fruity tastes are wonderful.

Soy Roasted Seeds: This is a mixture of roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds with soy sauce. It has 200 calories, but also 7 grams of protein. It’s fine, but rather plain as snacks go.

Fantastic Forest Fruits: This consists of soft apple pieces, cherry-flavored raisins, blueberries, and lingonberries. It has 80 calories. The lingonberries add a nice bit of tartness to a mix that would otherwise be too sweet for my tastes. Still, there are other Graze dried fruit snacks I like better.

Veggie Caesar: This consists of edamame, sour cream and onion half-popped corn kernels, and cheddar bruschetta. It has 110 calories. This is a tasty savory snack, with lots of crunch.

Cinnamon Pretzel: This is a mixture of pretzels and cinnamon honey almonds. It has 120 calories. The pretzels are just pretzels, but the cinnamon honey almonds are fabulous. I could probably eat a huge bag of them, so I’m glad for Graze’s built-in portion control.

Cookies & Cream (new): This is a mixture of mini cocoa cookies, white chocolate buttons, chocolate fudge, and sunflower seeds. It has 200 calories. This is tasty, but the ratio of components is disappointing. It was about 70% sunflower seeds. And there were only about 4 white chocolate buttons, which were too big to mix well with the rest of the ingredients.

Peach & Rhubarb Pick-Me-Up: This is a mixture of pear slices, rhubarb slices, and peach drops. It has 110 calories. Oddly, I had been craving pears recently, so this was well-timed. It’s also delicious. All of the ingredients are tasty individually and they really work well together. Delicious.

My Graze subscription has restarted, following my vacation.

Salted Fudge & Peanut Cookie: This consists of salted peanuts, redskin peanuts, mini chocolate cookies, and vanilla fudge. It has 230 calories. This is a good mix of sweet and salty. The fudge doesn’t really contribute much but sweetness, however.

Pizza Margherita: This is a mixture of basil crunchini, cheese cashews, and mini tomato breadsticks. It has 120 calories. Crunchini seems to be a fancy term for croutons. The breadsticks don’t have a lot of tomato flavor and the whole thing isn’t particularly pizza-like, in my opinion. However, this is still a good savory snack, particularly if you eat all of the components together.

Lightly Salted Popping Corn: This is 130 calories worth of microwave popcorn. There’s not really much more than that to say about it.

Baobab & Raspberry Clusters: This is a mixture of baobab and raspberry coconut clusters with apple pieces and pumpkin seeds. It has 130 calories. This is an excellent sweetish snack. The baobab clusters have a definite berry flavor, which mixes well with the apple pieces. And the pumpkin seeds add some protein. This sort of unusual snack is precisely why I subscribe to graze.

Sweet Rhubarb Jam: This is a mixture of rhubarb slices, dried apple slices, and dried cranberries. It has 100 calories. I like this a lot because the tartness of the rhubarb and cranberries balances the sweetness of the apples well. Delicious.

Billionaires’ Shortbread (new): This is a mixture of Belgian milk chocolate drops, almonds, cranberries, and fudge. It has 210 calories. This is an excellent sweet snack, with a blend of flavors that combine well. I upgraded it to from "like" to "love."

Sweet Mustard Ranch: This is a mix of mustard breadsticks, poppyseed pretzels, and sour cream and onion cashews. It has 130 calories. This is just okay. I like the pretzels and the cashews, but the mustard breadsticks are just a bit weird. That’s probably because I prefer my mustard spicy, not sweet.

Caramel Apple: This consists of dried apple slices with a caramel sauce. It has 80 calories. The caramel sauce is just about perfect, presumably because they use golden syrup in making it. Absolutely delicious.

I am swamped at work and annoyed at the world. But I can sort of keep up on snack reviewing. And, yes, my general stress level is probably why I am obsessed with this topic.

Twist of Black Pepper: This is 130 calories worth of microwave popcorn with salt and black pepper. I get this fairly often and continue to find it satisfying. It’s just about the right amount of popcorn, pops up with few orphans, and has a nice flavor twist thanks to the black pepper.

White Chocolate with Wild Blueberry Toasts: This consists of miniature toasts with blueberries and blueberry-infused cranberries, along with a white chocolate dip. It has 130 calories. White chocolate is not, of course, actual chocolate, but this is still a nice sweet snack. They’ve done a good job on getting the proportions right, so you have just the right amount of dip for each piece of the toast.

Summer Berry Flapjack: This is a soft oat granola bar with strawberry and raspberry infused cranberries. It has 230 calories. This is delicious, albeit a bit sweeter than I would want regularly. It’s also filling enough to serve as a lunch substitute.

Booster Seeds: This is a mix of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and golden flaxseeds. It has 200 calories and 9 grams of protein. It’s good enough, but not very exciting. And the flaxseeds, being tiny, are a bit of a pain to eat.

Eleanor’s Apple Crumble: This is a mixture of soft apple pieces, raisins, and caramelized honey and cinnamon apples. It has 110 calories. It is best to eat all the components together, but that doesn’t stop me from noting that I particularly love the almonds. A nice mix of flavors for a sweet snack.

Fiery Teriyaki Crunch (new): This is a mixture of soy-glazed almonds, edamame beans, jalapeno chickpeas, and chili broad beans. It has 130 calories. I thought this was surprisingly good, though not exactly fiery. The almonds had a slightly sweet undertone, which was a nice contrast with the rest of the ingredients.

Super Kale & Edamame (new): This consists of kale chips baked with cashew butter and chia seeds, along with edamame beans. It has 110 calories. I was skeptical about this – and justly so. The kale chips crumbled annoyingly and, alas, the cashew butter did not harmonize with the kale flavor. I trashed this snack, so I won’t get it again.

Jelly Doughnut:This is a mixture of raspberry fruit strings, almond slivers, raspberry infused cranberries, and vanilla cookie drops. It has 130 calories. If you eat all of the components together, it does taste surprisingly like a jelly doughnut. The raspberry fruit strings are particularly awesome, but the key to this is the balance of flavors and textures, since the fruit strings alone would be way too sweet. Yum.

Snacks before politics.

Sesame Garlic Crunch: This consists of garlic sesame sticks, oat bran sesame sticks, and multigrain soy crackers. It has 140 calories. It’s nicely crunchy and flavorful. This is the sort of thing that makes me appreciate Graze’s portion control, because I would be all too likely to eat handfuls of it mindlessly if I had a big bag.

Sweet Korean BBQ Crunch (new): This is a mixture of Korean BBQ-flavored almonds, black pepper almonds, black beans, and soy-roasted sunflower seeds. It has 150 calories and 9 grams of protein. I thought this was interesting, but not entirely successful. The Korean BBQ flavoring seemed a bit on the sweet side to me. The black beans don’t contribute much other than crunch. I’m willing to try it again, but, overall, I’m on the fence about the flavors.

Pumpkin Spice Flapjack: This is a rolled oat flapjack (i.e. soft granola bar) with dates and pumpkin spice. It has 230 calories. This is nicely spicy (mmm, cinnamon) but a bit sweeter than I’d prefer. Not bad, but there are other flapjacks I prefer.

Creamy Ranch Kern Pops: These are half-popped corn kernels with ranch seasoning. They have 140 calories, I really like the texture of these. The flavor is also good with a nice ranch tang. A good savory snack.

Summer Berry Compote: This is a fruit dip (essentially, jam) made with raspberries, strawberries, and black currants, which comes with three pieces of whole grain shortbread for dipping. It has 130 calories. The shortbread is rather dry and tasteless, but that doesn’t matter since you could dip cardboard into the compote and I would eat it happily. I love berries and this is thoroughly delicious. The black currants add a bit of tang, moderating the sweetness of the compote. Absolutely delicious – and another good argument for the built in portion control, because I could eat a vatful of this stuff.

Cinnamon Apple Pie: This is a mixture of cinnamon dusted apple pieces, yogurt-coated raisins, and almonds. It has 160 calories. The mix of flavors and textures is appealing, but the almonds need to be in smaller pieces to make it easier to eat all the components together.

Peanut Butter & Jelly: This is a mix of baked salted peanuts, raspberry fruit strings, and vanilla fudge. It has 220 calories. It’s best to eat all of the components together, but it’s hard to resist devouring the fruit strings, which are wonderful. This is a good combination of flavors and textures – sweet without being cloying.

Smokin’ Protein Kick (new): This consists of chili lemon fava beans, almonds, hickory smoked almonds, and pumpkin seeds. It has 170 calories – and 8 grams of protein. I couldn’t quite make up my mind on this snack. The pumpkin seeds were pretty boring. I liked the hickory smoked almonds, but there weren’t very many of them. There actually didn’t seem to be a lot of the regular almonds either. The fava beans were interesting, but I’m not sure the flavoring worked well. It’s the sort of thing I’m willing to try again, because my reactions sometimes depend on my mood or the time of day or the phase of the moon or whatever.

I have another political rant (or maybe two) to write, as well as a rundown of things I have been doing. But, first, the snack reviews.

Thai Sweet Chili Dippers:This consists of soy and rice crackers with a sweet chili sauce. It has 83 calories. It’s hard to tell from memory, but I think they have made this less sweet and a little spicier. If that isn’t my imagination, it’s an improvement. The crackers have a nice crunch and are just bland enough that a sweet chili sauce works with them.

Graze’s Grilled Cheese: This is a mix of sweet mustard breadsticks, cheddar bruschetta, and smoked almonds. It has 120 calories. It’s good mix of flavors, without any one of the components really dominating it. I’m not a big cheese person, but I still like this.

Lemon Drizzle Flapjack: This is a typical Graze flapjack, i.e. a soft oaten granola bar, with a lemon yogurt drizzle. It has 240 calories. It’s a pretty filling snack, so worth the calories. And it is absolutely delicious – one of my very favorites. I particularly like that the flavor is decidedly lemony. Yum.

Hickory Smoked BBQ (new): This is a mixture of barbecue peas, hickory smoked almonds, and roasted corn. It has 150 calories and 5 grams of protein. I liked both the crunch and the flavor – and, particularly, that it wasn’t salty. There are, however, other savory snacks I like better.

Raspberry & Coconut Muffin: This is a mix of raspberry-infused cranberries, almond slivers, amaretti drops, and coconut flakes. It has 149 calories. It’s best to eat all of the components together, especially since the raspberry-infused cranberries are so awesome, while the rest are rather more ordinary.

Wholesome Honey Nuts (new): This is a mixture of caramelized honey cashes, pumpkin seeds, and baked salted peanuts. It has 200 calories and 6 grams of protein. The honey cashews are amazingly good. The other ingredients are fairly ordinary, but the idea is o eat all of the components together. Very nice.

Chocolate Pretzel Dipper: This consists of a chocolate hazelnut dipper with lightly salted pretzel sticks to dip into it. It has 140 calories. I’ve gotten this a lot of times and continue to like it. It’s not particularly virtuous as snacks go, but sometimes one wants to have something sweet and the portion control helps a lot.

Vitamin E Defense: This has roasted hazelnuts, redskin peanuts, jumbo raisins, and dried cranberries. It has 190 calories. It’s not especially exciting, but is perfectly fine as a trail mix sort of thing goes.