Friday I'm In Love... with Trader Joe's Candy Cane Coal

It's seeming like every Friday I'm In Love post is candy from Trader Joe's, and rightfully so. There are always new products every time I walk in, and I can't help but walk out with at least one new item to try. And Christmas time is an even better time for new products - you never know what kind of gifty thing you're going to find there.

Case in point: Candy Cane Coal. It's got kind of a stupid name, but I'll let that pass, because it tastes so damn good. The box is small (although I like the simple design of a fireplace) and holds about 3.5 ounces of the candy. Doesn't sound like much, but there's lots of flavor in each little bit. The candy is tiny bits of crispy candy cane covered in dark chocolate. That's, like, two of my favorite flavors in one food. How could I not love this?!

I've already eaten plenty of these straight, but I've also done a little baking with them as well. Stop back on Monday for the recipe. I'm thinking I might have to stockpile this stuff after Christmas because I don't want to not have this in my life.

Friday I'm In Love... with Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar with Caramel and Black Sea Salt

Recovered from your Halloween sugar coma? I would have traded all the Halloween candy I ate for just one of these bad boys. Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar - Caramel with Black Sea Salt (say that 10 times fast) is just too damn good. It's a very good 70% chocolate with a nice snap, filled with a deliciously runny caramel and topped with giant flakes of salt. I'm a fool for anything salty/sweet, and if you add in chocolate, it's a perfect trifecta. This bar doesn't fail on any of its three components. Oh, that caramel... I've heard rumors of jarred salted caramel at TJs, and if it's the same stuff as this, I'm glad I haven't found it yet - I would eat it all with a spoon.

This is not a pretty chocolate bar, though. I know, I took about 50 pictures of it. One side of the bar is nice and smooth, but the opposite side, where the salt is sprinkled, is more unruly. Between the salt, which could stand to be distributed a lot more evenly, and holes where the caramel had oozed out a bit, it becomes clear that the reason Trader Joe's can sell this bar for a very, very reasonable $2 and something is because it's pretty hideous. This isn't something to give as a gift, as it will win no beauty pageants. But then, I'd have a hard time giving one away. I want to keep them all for myself.

Friday I'm in Love... with Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack

Like any good Boston girl, I love my ice cream. It's not uncommon around here to find people lined up for ice cream on a cold winter's night. I also love desserts that are both salty and sweet, so when I heard that Ben & Jerry's had come out with a flavor in honor of Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Show that involved potato chips and salted caramel, I searched high and low to find it.

(Truth be told, I'm more of a Craig Ferguson fan than Jimmy, but Craig doesn't have his own ice cream flavor...yet. This is my favorite clip from the Late Late Show.)

Supermarket after supermarket didn't have Late Night Snack on the shelves, but I eventually found some and dug right in. The ice cream base itself is a premium vanilla, flecked with Fair Trade vanilla beans, and is sweet and smooth. The caramel runs in ribbons throughout, and its saltiness is more pronounced when eaten with only a small amount of the ice cream. And the chocolate-covered potato chip clusters? Crispy and salty (although the caramel is saltier), but not all-together what I was expecting.

These clusters are more like rice crispies - airy and crackly - than like real potato chips. So after a slight disappointment in not finding real chips, I started to get into the texture of these clusters.

Final verdict? I'm hoping this flavor doesn't go away anytime soon. Much like its sibling, Chubby Hubby (vanilla malt ice cream with fudge and peanut butter and chocolate-covered peanut butter-filled pretzels), Late Night Snack appeals to those of us who like a little savory with the sweet. Unlike Chubby Hubby, where the pretzels are a bite in themselves, Late Night Snack's potato chip clusters are just the right size to enjoy in conjunction with the rest of the ingredients.

Friday I'm In Love... with Snow Soda

I know it's not in fashion to drink soda these days, but sometimes you still want something bubbly that's not just seltzer. That's where something like Snow comes in - made with cane sugar and loaded with vitamins, Snow is a slightly more virtuous version of the stuff we love to drink.

Snow comes in three flavors - Lemon Lime, Cranberry PomRaz, and Cola. I really loved the fruit flavors. The Lemon Lime was tart and crisp, not just sweet. The Cranberry PomRaz, combining cranberry, pomegranate, and raspberry, tasted fresh and light, like a fizzy version of cranraz juice. The Cola, on the other hand, did not work for me; it tasted almost watered down, but then, I'm firmly a Coke Zero girl, and nothing else tastes right to me. But those fruit flavors - I enjoyed them on their own, but they make even better mixers!

I am also happy to see that Snow will soon be releasing a no-calorie version of their drinks, flavored with (I assume) stevia. I'm looking forward to giving them a try.

Snow is available throughout southern New England.

Full Disclosure note: Samples of Snow soda were provided to me free-of-charge.

Friday I'm In Love... with Best Friends Cocoa

I'm not usually a big fan of cocoa - it gives me a stomach ache like nothing else - but there are times during the long, cold winter when you want something hot that isn't coffee or tea, or you just HAVE to have chocolate and there isn't a bar in sight. For years, I put up with the crappy box of packets from the supermarket when I needed a fix, but more often than not, I just went without.

A few weeks ago, though, I got an email from the folks at Best Friends Cocoa, and my thoughts changed drastically with one taste. By "folks," I mean Linda and Uri Guttman, who bought the company from its founder about 6 years ago when it was about to close. Since then, they've run the company from a small factory space in Arlington with just a few employees.

Like I said, Best Friends Cocoa changed my thoughts on cocoa as a whole. This stuff is smooth and sweet and comforting, while the supermarket stuff just tastes like dirty water in comparison. (It also doesn't give me a stomach ache - must be the all the chemicals in the mass-produced stuff.) It takes a little more effort to stir into your hot water (like I said, no chemicals means you have to do a little more work), but it's well worth it. If stirring is too much trouble for you, Best Friends Cocoa can also sell you a little battery-powered milk frother to mix up your cup of cocoa.

And did I mention flavors? Besides the traditional, which is fun to dress up with your favorite liqueur as a treat (I've enjoyed it with mint Bailey's as well as PAMA), they also offer Marshmallow Cloud (Linda's description is best: "a marshmallow toasting over a campfire, melting into your cup of cocoa"), Cinnamon Twist (a warm flavor with just a bit of kick), and Raspberry Truffle (Oh. My. God.).

Best Friends Cocoa is available to order through their website (including a sampler pack so you can decide which is your favorite), at Whole Foods Markets in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and through various markets and gift shops. Linda and Uri also have a table at Dedham's Indoor Farmers Market, held Sundays from 10am to 2pm in the Odd Fellows building at 626 High Street in Dedham. Above is Linda, Queen of Cocoa, holding court over her booth.

Friday I'm in Love... with Cocoa Metro Milk

If you can ever find a time to wander around a place like Russo's when it isn't busy (is Russo's ever not busy?!), you'll be rewarded with little gems of products sitting on the shelves. Ann and I took a trip to Russo's last weekend, and the sleek packaging of Cocoa Metro stood out against the other milk options - crisp white lettering on a glass bottle, filled with silky-looking, deep brown chocolate milk.

Surprisingly, when I got home, there was an email in my inbox from the founder of Cocoa Metro, telling me about the product. I told him I already loved the packaging and their tagline (Carpe Cocoa - what, you think I like Latin or something?), and he offered to bring a bottle over for me to try.

I broke the milk out the next morning and gave it a small sip. It's thick and velvety and just sweet enough to balance out the dark chocolate. I'm usually a skim milk girl, so this 2% mix is a little thick for my taste, but it is utterly heavenly. It actually tastes like chocolate, not some weird amalgam of chemicals, with a touch of vanilla to balance it out. Plus, Cocoa Metro uses Callebaut chocolate, some of the best stuff around.

Back to that 2% thing. I knew I could easily have balanced it out with a measure of skim milk to water it down, but I had other things in mind. I poured some milk into a coffee mug, about halfway, then microwaved it until hot. I used my cheapo milk frother to whip it up, but if you don't have one, you can just use a small whisk stuck into the mug and twirled between the palms of your hands. Topped off with regular drip coffee, the Cocoa Metro made a better mocha than what you can get at a coffee shop. And for slightly more than the cost of one mocha at Starbucks, you can get a whole bottle of Cocoa Metro to make mochas at home for a week.

Cocoa Metro is only available in the Boston area: Bread & Chocolate in Newton, Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Russo's in Watertown, and a number of Whole Foods.

Friday I'm In Love... with Kozy Shack Pear Mangosteen Pudding

I was walking through the supermarket the other day and came to a screeching halt next to the pudding section. Kozy Shack's new Simply Well line has colorful packaging and, more importantly, flavors that make it stand out from the crowd on the shelf. The words "pear" and "mangosteen" jumped out at me - these are not things that usually describe pudding - and a package made its way into my basket in a split-second.

And after popping a cup open, it became clear to me that this pudding was more than pretty packaging. Both the pear and the mangosteen flavors are clear and distinct, and yet they work together in harmony to create one hell of a pudding. It's light and refreshing and yet filling. The texture in the package is a little thick (hence no picture), thanks to tapioca starch and added fiber, but the mouthfeel is just right.

I found my pear mangosteen pudding at my local Market Basket (which is quickly becoming a great place to shop for speciality items), but you could ask for it at any store that already carries Kozy Shack puddings.

Friday I'm in Love... with Little Lad's Herbal Popcorn

I first stumbled across this stuff a few years ago in a slow wander through Whole Foods. I was intrigued - unlike almost all the packages around it, it only had a small label. The clear bag let you really see what was inside (a novelty for junk food), and it certainly didn't look like any popcorn I had seen before.

Little Lad's is apparently a restaurant in New York City and Maine (2 locations there) (The Phoenix has an interesting article that talks about the restaurants). And they're famous for their popcorn. Luckily, I don't have to make a trip up to Maine when I get a craving (and yes, I crave this popcorn like it's my job). (My, there were a lot of asides in this little paragraph.)

What makes this popcorn so amazing? It's not like anything else out there - it's tossed in a mixture of nutritional yeast and dried dill. Deliciously savory... and did I mention addictive? It sounds weird, and the name certainly doesn't help. The only problem is that you invariably end up with little flecks of dill under your nails - those can be a bitch to get out. It's messier than most popcorn too, so you may want to eat it was a Dustbuster nearby.

I used to find this at a bunch of different Whole Foods, but lately I've only seen it at my local Woburn shop. If your Whole Foods doesn't have it, ask if they can get a box. If you can't find Little Lad's, you can try making your own at home.

Friday I'm in Love... with KIND Bars

I've known about KIND Bars for a while now, but I've only recently fallen in love. I bought them years ago, but in an effort to cut out calories from nuts, I stopped buying them. (Now that I understand the nutrition in nuts, though, I try to eat a little bit every day.) I was given a few samples last week at the Natural Products Expo in Boston, and from the first bite, I was in love.

KIND Bars are filled with fruits and nuts, unlike their granola bar counterparts which don't always have a lot of substance. The best part? They actually taste like what they're named. The Mango Macadamia (above) tastes like mango and macadamia nuts (with a little coconut thrown in), the Almond & Apricot tastes like almonds and apricot, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries! (Wait, no...) The Fruit & Nut Delight is probably my favorite, filled with peanuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts, raisins, apricots, dates, and honey. And they're satisfying, thanks to the nuts and some added fiber.

KIND Bars are available at tons of locations, like Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Shaw's, and Market Basket. They are also the gluten-free offering at Starbucks stores (now that Starbucks has done away with their awesome GF Valencia Orange cakes). Or, if you really love them, you can order them online through the KIND Advantage program.