The Grand Finale!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!


Sorry for my slackness in blogging. I have been doing a lot of dating since my recent relationship fiasco and it is sooooo time consuming! Those of you who are married, give your spouse a big kiss. The grass is definitely NOT greener out here. That's one of the big challenges in relationships - we always think there might be something better...... (we do the same thing with jobs, houses - lots of things). Us crazy humans are never satisfied, and therefore, never happy.

Well, here's something that really satisfies:

I love Snickers. I already showed you one of the terrific Valentine's Day assortments with the miniature Snickers bars, but look at these!! They taste delicious - and I love the design. I think this is one of the best looking Valentine's Day chocolates I've seen. Love it!! A+ for design and A+ for taste.

My first love (and at this rate, perhaps my last) is chocolate. Think of this entry as the grand finale, featuring a wild bombardment of all the Valentine's Day treats I have yet to review. (Feel free to say "Oooh" and "Ahh" just like you would at the fireworks finale on the 4th of July.)


Butterfinger and Crunch have the same packaging:

Notice the Spanish on the packaging. Much of our candy is now made in Mexico. More about that in an upcoming entry.



These are solid offerings if you like Crunch and Butterfinger. You can get the little foil wrapped guys or the larger single hearts. These are designed to compete with the Reese's Heart, I'm sure. (But they are no competition in my book. The Reese's Heart crushes there.) I also think the chocolate is sub par - kind of waxy. Of the two, I prefer the Butterfinger because I'm a sucker for peanut butter. But these are only average.

They aren't finished yet!





I like the Mini Butterfinger bars better. Solid blocks of peanut buttery crispness - yay! This assortment also has Mini Baby Ruth bars. I like the Baby Ruth - love the nuts and the chewy nougat. What about you all? What are your favorites?

Like the colors and the hearts:




Hershey's has another entry I found in the Hallmark store. I have completely given up on Russell Stover - glaack!! No mas!! Although Stover dominates in the boxed chocolate selection and they had some hilarious and gorgeous heart shaped boxes this year, I'm just not buying any more of that yucky chocolate.



If you like marshmallow - this is for you! It is simply a huge slab of marshmallow coated with Hershey's chocolate. Better than Russell Stover, but I really don't want this much marshmallow. Peanut better, yes! Marshmallow, no. I do, however, really like the package design. The touches of turquoise - very classy. I would totally buy this wrapper on a t-shirt.

Now here's a surprise out of left field:




This is Valentine Taffy from some random company called Sweet Time. I found it at Walgreens. It is completely addictive and I'm not even sure what the flavors were. (After eating the ENTIRE bag, I don't know what the flavors were. I know, I scare myself.) One tasted kind of like watermelon. All were REALLY good - I am NOT kidding! Low fat too! If you see these, they are totally cheap - buy them! I'm going to try to get some more. I think my dentist will love Sweet Time. Maybe it is run by dentists.





The clever packaging award goes to Toblerone:




Toblerone Bars are awesome. Great shape, great chocolate. This is the same old bar, but how perfect to make it look like a rose? GREAT job!! My picture doesn't do it justice - it really is a gorgeous looking rose. Oooh! Ahhh!


And my heroes at Vitalicious (of the 100 calorie, vitamin, protein, fiber packed treats) have a fantastic Valentine's Day offering:


Look at that gorgeous box! It contains a dozen, delicious 100 calorie heart-shaped cakes. How cute are these? And can you tell how moist they are? They are thick too - about 2.5 inches. The perfect, decadent but low cal treat. Oooh!!! Aaah!!!



I hope you had a great Valentine's Day and if you have someone in your life you love, you take a few minutes to really appreciate them. It is so easy to take your loved ones for granted. And I hope you all know how much you mean to me!!! This Valentine's Day would have been a lot harder without all your kind words and support! And thanks for taking the time to read this crazy blog!!

Russell Stover's Last Stand

I was sorely disappointed by Russell Stover's Halloween chocolate. But I am willing to give them one more chance. Having unwrapped their offerings, my hopes are not high.

Let's talk Santa.

These are Nestle's Santas:





They are coaster sized disks with a cute Santa face and each says Santa Claus is Comin' to Town! The Butterfinger disk is awesome! I love Butterfingers, so that was not surprising. The Crunch is okay. To me all Crunch is only okay. Bland, waxy chocolate - pass. It's the peanut butter that saves the Butterfinger Santa and the chocolate seems better than that in the Crunch. But I could just be deluded by the peanut butter.

Now look at this:




Do you see those blobs? Those are "Santas" according to Russell Stover. Maybe mummies. Maybe potatoes. One looks like the Pope. They ain't Santas. I put in Snickers Nutcracker to make it even more clear how lame the RS Santas are.

I mean, come on! Did they even try? You can see the buttons on the Nutcracker's jacket! I can barely make out "Santa's" head! BOO on aesthetics. Coal and switches, RS.

But let's talk taste. RS's caramel Santa was not too bad. Nothing extraordinary, but not bad. I still don't like the way their chocolate just crumbles. Not melts - cracks, crumbles. Snickers' Nutcracker is better - you've got caramel and peanuts and I like the chocolate better.

The coconut cream Santa is okay if you REALLY like coconut cream - it's sweet, with coconut chunks but not creamy. It has the consistency of marshmallow. I found it gross. The coconut Santa (not cream, just coconut) is an inferior version of an Almond Joy with no almond. (And not much joy.)

There's also a coconut wreath (apparently RS goes all out with coconut at Christmas. I don't think of coconut as a Christmas treat, but hey, why not?) Better than VEGETABLES.

Again, aesthetics not so good. I'm not going to elaborate - you can see for yourself. BUT - this was my favorite of the RS treats! I'm surprised! I like it! Hey, Mikey! RS may not be dead to me yet! I would actually buy this again. It's not a chocolate coated thing like the others, the chocolate is mixed with the coconut and it's nice and moist. YUM! No switches!!

Remember Russell Stover's infamous Buzzard Egg at Halloween? The one I busted for being an Easter Egg repackaged and repackaged badly? Well, it's BAAAACK!

And the competition is none other than the Cadbury Ornament Creme Egg! (Hey -at least they tied it to Christmas and called it an ornament - RS just said "Marshmallow and Caramel" and stuck a Santa picture on the label.

Here they are naked - at least Cadbury tried to make theirs look seasonal:

Russell Stover is just sticking with the Easter decoration year round. RS is lazy in the aesthetics department. More coal and switches. Santa is SO watching! (And he's not laughing at the Pope thing.)

Let's look inside these babies, where the yolk meets the egg!

Now, there really is no competiton here. The first picture is RS - there is a big hole where caramel should be. And look at that spongy marshmallow! Something is just not working here - I don't know what happens to the caramel. There's some weird liquid between the marshmallow and the chocolate so maybe it's caramel. I don't know. I didn't like it as a buzzard egg and I don't like it as a weird Santa egg.

The Cadbury egg is much better - it actually looks like an egg, it's creamy and delicious. Although I have to confess that it is a little too sweet for me. But it blows RS out of the nest.

So here are my favs - the Butterfinger Santa disk, the Snickers Nutcracker, and the RS Wreath. I higly recommend them all - they are relatively inexpensive and taste pretty darn good.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!!!