Black hole

I lost my camera, y'all! I have no idea where it is...I haven't seen it since before Christmas. We didn't even take pictures on Christmas morning! I think the cleaning ladies may have put it somewhere odd and we just haven't run across it yet. But this means that my food blogging is STILL on hiatus...I can't even put up the yummy lentil soup recipe I made because I don't have the picture that is still on the flash card in my camera. *sigh*

However, I do have one thing to report on: I got samples of the new Quaker True Delights granola bars from Foodbuzz. There are three flavors: Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond, Honey Roasted Cashew Mixed Berry, and Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut.

The first one I tried was the Honey Roasted Cashew flavor, and WHOA! That thing is SWEET. I admit, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but it was extreme even for Mr Wonderful, who's got a bit of a thing for candy. Strong honey flavor. I couldn't really taste any berry at all, but the cashews were nice. I love cashews.

Secondly, I tried the Toasted Coconut Banana one. I was a bit wary, because I usually find banana-flavored things either disgusting (faux-banana flavored candy, for example) or just okay. This was pretty nice though; it tasted mostly like banana bread with macadamia nuts thrown in. I couldn't really taste the coconut at all, which is a shame because I'm a big coconut fan.

The last one I tried (and of course the first one Mr Wonderful snagged) was the Dark Chocolate Raspberry one. So sue me, I'm not much of a chocoholic. ;-) There was less chocolate than I expected, and not a whole lot of raspberry or almond either. It was pretty hit or miss - some bites were strongly chocolate or strongly raspberry, if you got a big chunk of one of those in that bite, but I didn't taste the almond at all. I think the almond is so close to the natural oat flavor, and the almond pieces are so small (maybe slivers of almond? I didn't see any big chunks) that they don't really come through.

All in all, they were nice if you're looking for a substitute for a candy bar, but I wouldn't call these health food by any stretch of the imagination. They were far too sweet for me (except maybe the chocolate raspberry, oddly enough), and I thought the balance of flavors was a little off in each one. If you're going to advertise "Mixed Berry" in the name of the product, you should have that flavor at least be detectable.