Review: Millican Pecan Company Four Chocolate Gift Tin

I mentioned previously that I got some opportunities to review some free products from Chocolate.org (follow their Twitter @choctweets if you like!) and today's review subject is another one of those opportunities.  Today's product comes via Chocolate.org and the Millican Pecan Company, which is based in San Saba, Texas, which reminds me of something funny.  Throughout life, I've come across two pronunciations of the word pecan.  For people in Texas, I believe it is pronounced "PEE-can."  For me and a lot of others, it is pronounced "PUH-con."  I don't know why I find that funny, but I am the type that is easily amused.  Anyway, I received this Millican Pecan Company Four Chocolate Gift Tin recently and it was wrapped up in perhaps the most protective covering of all time.  It was insulated to prevent melting (I appreciate that considering melting has been an issue here before) and it was also padded to prevent the tin denting.  All I know is that it was wrapped up so securely that it took me nearly five minutes to get to the tin.  I found that amusing.  Anyway, the entire tin itself is sixteen ounces and is available from Chocolate.org for $16.00 plus shipping and handling.  There's not any nutrition information posted, which is actually probably a good thing.  I don't want to know how many calories I'll be ingesting as I destroy this.

Review: thinkThin Chocolate Peanut Butter Toffee Protein + Fiber Bar

Thinking back to the beginning of this blog and how naive/dumb I am, I'm reminded of one of the misconceptions that I had when this blog first launched.  I believed that thinkThin products were available only in Kroger and were their store brand under a different name.  I don't know why I thought that, but that continued on for several reviews until I started seeing these pop up in different stores.  It was in one of those different stores (Marsh) that I picked up this new flavor and product line thinkThin Chocolate Peanut Butter Toffee Protein + Fiber Bar for $1.79.  It comes in at 1.76 ounces and has 180 calories and thirteen grams of protein.  As an aside, my uncle always brings toffee to our Christmas gatherings because he knows that none of us can keep our hands off of it.  It's the thought of that toffee that excites me every time I see a product with toffee in the name, so that correlation had me pretty excited about this one when it popped up on the shelf.

Review: Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Toffee Crunch Chocolatey Toffee Granola Bars

I have an admission to make...I love toffee and I don't know why.  For some reason, any time that I'm near toffee, I can't keep my hands off of it, especially when that toffee is mixed with chocolate.  Knowing that, diving into another Kellogg's Nutri-Grain review with today's new product review of these Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Toffee Crunch Chocolatey Toffee Granola Bars would seem to be right up my alley.  I picked up this box of ten bars (five pouches with two bars each actually) on sale at Meijer for $3.00.  Each pouch is a combined 1.48 ounces with 190 calories and three grams of protein with 25% of your daily fiber value.  I'll leave it up you if you want to do the math to come up with the per bar values.

Review: Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch Ice Cream

I was reading an article in my local Indianapolis paper recently about how a local bakery was starting to make its own ice cream to sell at their stores.  The owner was going through the process of how long it took them to make their own flavors and said that the hardest flavor for him to come up with a recipe for was vanilla.  He said this one took him the longest because all ice creams manufacturers are judged by how good their vanilla ice cream is because not only is it the most popular flavor of ice cream there is, but also because it is the base for so many other flavor combinations.  I was reminded of that when I picked up this pint of Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch Ice Cream at Meijer for $2.50 to add to my Ben & Jerry's collection.  This is a basic flavor that has been out for quite a long time, but it's one I've never looked at on the blog and since I've never really had the chance to review what is essentially their unaltered vanilla-flavored ice cream before, I feel this review is very fitting.  The pint is the typical four half-cup servings of ice cream and each serving is 280 calories.

Review: Klondike Heath Ice Cream Bars

The old commercial tagline for Klondike Bars was "What would you do for a Klondike bar?"  Klondike bars are fine, but I wouldn't even buy them unless they were on sale.  So, in response to the commercial, my answer is that I wouldn't do much.  That said, they were on sale recently as I mentioned in a prior review, so I picked up two different flavors and this Klondike Heath Ice Cream Bar is that second flavor.  I picked these up at Meijer on sale for $2.50 for a box of six and each bar in the box is 230 calories and roughly four ounces per bar.  Obviously modeled after HEATH bars, it's milk chocolate English toffee in ice cream bar form (the tagline is "Kind of like a HEATH bar, only ice creamier"; cute).  I can't remember if I've mentioned this in prior toffee flavored product reviews, but toffee is something that I never really developed a craving for until later in life.  HEATH bars were fine as I was growing up, but they weren't anything that I actively pursued.  It wasn't until later in life when my uncle showed up at Christmas with a brick of toffee from a sweets shop that I developed an intense craving for it.  That stuff was so incredible that it sold me on toffee for life.

Review: TCBY English Toffee Crunch Frozen Yogurt

I admit that I don't have a lot of memories of TCBY and its yogurt shops.  There was one in the rich person mall in the 1980s, but that location closed and then they disappeared for the longest time here in the Indianapolis area (at least according to my memory).  With the recent frozen yogurt craze that is taking over America, there's been a location or two pop up here locally, but they haven't taken over like some of the other chains have done.  One thing TCBY has done that the other chains have not done is introduce a grocery line of product and as I was meandering through Walmart recently looking for some dessert after my stop in the deli, I saw a pint of one of TCBY's new frozen yogurt grocery products with this TCBY English Toffee Crunch Frozen Yogurt that I picked up for $2.98.  As with all pints, it contains four half-cup servings and each serving is a semi-economical 150 calories per serving.

Review: CLIF Peanut Toffee Buzz Bar

In the many CLIF Bar reviews that I have done, I can honestly say that outside of a few flavors, I've never been too impressed with their products and have never understood why they get such a devout following.  It's not that they taste awful, but the majority of them are just soft and chewy mixes of nothingness.  That said, I'm still going to try them out and during one of my regular visits to The Dollar Tree recently, this CLIF Peanut Toffee Buzz bar jumped out at me and I grabbed it and lugged it home to try out.  As with all CLIF bars, this one is 2.4 ounces, 240 calories and contains ten grams of protein.   One thing that is different about this one is that it carries on its packaging a warning label of "Contains Caffeine" and that is something I've never seen on a CLIF product before, so my interest was definitely piqued by that.  In case you were wondering, the caffeine comes from Green Tea Extract, which is listed as one of the ingredients on the wrapper.

Review: Breyers Blasts! Heath English Toffee Frozen Dairy Dessert

In my previous Breyers Blasts! review of their Chips Ahoy! flavor, I remarked how they certainly didn't short you on the amount of add-ins that you receive, which is certainly the whole point of the Breyers Blasts! line of products.  When I picked up that last container, I picked up a second container to check out and that leads me to this review of the Breyers Blasts! Heath English Toffee Frozen Dairy Dessert.  Just like last time, this was picked up at Marsh for $3.00 for the 1.5 quart container.  Each container contains about twelve servings and since this is frozen dairy dessert and not actual ice cream, it's a fairly economical 140 calories per serving.

Review: Ben & Jerry's John Lennon's Imagine Whirled Peace Ice Cream

Despite the fact that my waist line continues to expand because of this blog, I figure there is no better time than now to review another Ben & Jerry's product with this review of their John Lennon Imagine Whirled Peace.  I find Ben & Jerry's continued reference to stoners to be quite funny and since they've already hit on the Grateful Dead, why not hit on one of the leads of one of the most overrated bands of all time by naming an ice cream after John Lennon?  Sure, go for it!  Okay, so maybe they named it after him because he was such a proponent for peace and not for weed.  Well, I guess that makes sense.  Anyway, I picked up this pint on sale at Kroger for $3.00 and it is the typical four servings.  Each serving contains 270 calories, so while it is not the healthiest thing in the world (just like all Ben & Jerry's products), it falls somewhere in the middle of all the caloric bombs that they put out on the market.

Review: PowerBar Harvest Toffee Chocolate Chip Energy Bar

My first PowerBar review here at the blog was quite successful.  While that bar was from their Recovery line of products, I found that bar to be similar to a candy bar, so I was excited to try out one of their different product lines and dig into this Harvest Toffee Chocolate Chip energy bar.  I knew it wouldn't be like a candy bar because of its composition and appearance, but as someone who appreciates toffee flavoring (it's not for everyone), I was anxious to see how this flavor would translate to this bar.  I picked this one up on sale at Meijer for $1.00 and it weighs in at 2.29 ounces with 250 calories and ten grams of protein.  It's made of "natural" flavor and PowerBar designates that it should be used before or during a workout/physical activity (stage one or stage two according to their three stage workout scale).

Review: Dean's Denali Caramel Caribou Ice Cream

I've had bad luck with Dean's so far.  My last product review was of their Country Churn Low Fat Denali Moose Tracks flavor and it was an abysmal failure.  Since I had a coupon for Dean's again, I was willing to give them one more shot with this Denali Caramel Caribou flavored ice cream.  As with all Denali products, the recipe blend is theirs but they license it to individual dairys to produced under their own label (in this case, it is Dean's obviously).

Standing in the freezer section and looking at the ingredients that this contained (toffee flavored ice cream, caramel cups and a caramel swirl), I knew I was hooked.  Caramel is delicious on its own and mixing that with toffee sounded like an intriguing and delicious combination.  FYI, this one was on sale at Meijer for $3.00  for a 1.5 quart container (I had a 55 cents off coupon to lower that) and each serving in the container (about thirteen) contains 160 calories.