Food Find Friday // Enjoy Life Seed & Fruit

Heeeyyy. 

Is Friday, and you know what that means! Another food review!

Todays spotlight shines on to (drumroll please) Enjoy Life Foods Seed and Fruit mix. woop-woop.

If you'll recall, I reviewed this particular set of snackable items back in 2012. Enjoy Life has since rebranded their packaging, and here I am once again. You can go ahead and click here for the original review.

Because the recipe remains the same, I am going to focus on some exciting things you can do with the Seed and Fruit mix. Other then shove it in your face by the handful that is.

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

This post must be started with a disclaimer.

Every fall, women and children alike (I'm pretty sure not much of the male population is included in this) get incredibly excited for the arrival of pumpkin flavored goods.  The day Starbucks rolls out their pumpkin latte, everyone knows about it whether they care or not by the influx of social media attention. Really....I don't need to see another picture on Instagram of a Starbucks cup. Seriously. Stop it.

They get excited to buy cans of pumpkin and use it in every possible baked good they can think of, eat as many slices of pie as they can fit in their mouth, and light candles with the scent of the favorited orange squash.

The one woman-child that does not give a hoot about pumpkin flavored anything,would be this one right here. Yup. I really couldn't care any less about any of it. Actually thats not true, because saying I  couldn't care less gives the implication that I am indifferent to the whole thing, when in actuality I really quite despise it all. 

I said it, I do not like pumpkin.

I cannot stand pumpkin pie, I do not like the smell, the texture or the taste of any pumpkin goods I've come across. Maybe somethings just wrong with me, I dunno. 

Food Find Friday // Enjoy Life Crunchy Cookies: Part Deux // and a GIVEAWAY

(*giveaway is now closed, winner notified via email.)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away... I reviewed Enjoy Life Foods Crunchy Cookies for the first time. Since then, Enjoy Life has done some sprucing on all of their packaging and requested that I review them once more. So here we are! 

There are four flavors in the crunchy cookie line, all using the same great recipe as before--just with a different outer look!

The flavors include: Sugar Crisp, Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate and Vanilla Honey Graham.

Each distinctive flavor is free of the eight common allergies (gluten, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, soy, shellfish and fish) and are also free of potato, casein, sesame and sulfates. They are made in a dedicated gluten free facility, and are free of artificial ingredients and GMO's. Pretty great right?!

Now that we got that business out of the way, lets talk about each flavor and what you can do with them. Obviously you can just eat each cookie as is, but I like to make  things more complicated for myself, and make them into other things. All of these recipes are incredibly simple, and only require a few ingredients. 

Click on over to my previous review for flavor breakdowns of each crunchy cookie flavor.

New and Approved Enjoy Life Chewy Bars

So, a couple months ago I started yet another new job. Between boringness, urgent medical leaves, travel time and crazy bosses, I have been employed by several different medical offices over the years. This new one seems like it might stick though, the best part its in a gastro office. Peoples with stomach troubles, are my people. 

Anyway, why I'm telling you this extremely riveting story, is that while being busy busy at work all day, I get hungry. I am a snacker, I need my mid morning, and mid afternoon snack. Breakfast is not really my thing in the morning, lunch-ehhh. But snack time, I'm all over that.

So what quick and easy snack to I have, basically everyday? Why, Enjoy Life Chewy Bars of course.

They are quick, easy, and dare I say filling. (for a snack bar anyway;)

I wrote a review on these bars a while back, but they have since revamped both their packaging and recipes for these bars. 

During these changes, my local grocery stores where all giving me heart attacks while all the Enjoy Life products slowly disappeared from their shelves. It was majorly stressful guys. Thankfully, the new and improved products have slowly started to make their way back into stores. In fact, I've noticed that most of these new and improved chewy bars, even feature a sample bar of one of the decadent bars. Whoohoo!

But lets get to the new Chewy bars, and my verdict on the new recipes, shall we?!

Cocoa Loco. I am loco for cocoa.

Sorry, had to do it.

This flavors improvement claim is that it has even more chocolatey deliciousness then before. 

When I received these bars, I just happened to have one of the "old" bars on hand, so naturally a side by side comparison was made. Sure enough, the new bars appeared to have more chocolate chips, and had a much more enhanced sweetness to the chocolate bar. 

New bar beat the old bar, hands down.

(not to say the old bar was not good, because it totally was. The new bar was just better ;)

SunButter Crunch was next.

Its claim is that it now features ancient grains.

 Which, I mean-did it not have those before? I don't really know.

I had tried this bar flavor for the first time when I last reviewed these bars. Upon trying them, I declared them my new favorite bar. I don't feel like the bars with the new recipe taste much different. Which is a good thing, because I like them just the way they are.

But yay for ancient grains, right?

Now, the Mixed Berry bars.

This flavor is what I found to be the most improved, hands down.

Previously, this bar had not been my favorite. It was kind of bland, with just bits of berry pieces that kind of reminded my of cough syrup. No longer. 

the WHOLE bar now tastes berry-tastic, and it has plenty of real berry pieces that taste sweet and chewy.

It is also the flavor that all my stores seem to carry, so I'm glad it tastes so good.

Caramel Apple is last but not least, 

I also quite enjoyed the changes in this bar. 

It seems to have a more enhanced cinnamon flavor, and tastes like a wonderful fall day.

Too much?

But really, the bar of the bar has much more flavor, and it still has those perfect little apple pieces.

So my gluten free friends, 

Now you have it. 

Enjoy Life's new and improved Chewy bars, are both new and improved.

Check them out now, at your local grocery store!

And check out the Enjoy Life Website for other products, recipes and coupons!

Also, read my other review on Enjoy Life products, here.

Enjoy!

Food Find Friday:: Enjoy Life Decadent Bars

Yay! A Food Find Friday! You guys have been missing them, huh? ;)

Well, my loves-I have a brand new find for you today. A product that has barely even hit shelves, one that I have been drooling over ever since the day I first heard the news of their arrival.

What is this product you ask?

Why, its Enjoy Life Foods new Decadent Bars!

This new product from Enjoy Life, is a delicious chewy bar drizzled in chocolate, and as they say: "made with 100% decadence". 

Tagline a little cheezy, I know. But they are pretty delectable.

As with all of their products, these bars are made free of the eight common allergens: wheat, dairy, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, fish and shellfish. They are also verified non-GMO, made in a dedicated allergen safe facility, and contain no artificial ingredients. 

Do you understand why I love them so much now?

These decadent snack bars, come in four flavors.

Cherry Cobbler, S'mores, Chocolate Sunbutter, and Cinnamon Bun.

And as with the chewy bars before them, they come five in a box. Which I may just never understand...{please just add one more! Make it an even six!}

I take my job on this blog, very seriously. And although difficult at times, I must sacrifice for the people. Today, I am going to a great sacrifice of eating all these bars.

Somehow, I will find a way to manage...

Lets break 'em down:

First to the plate, 

{guess what? you don't actually need a plate to eat these! whoa.}

are the S'mores bars:

I love s'mores. They make me happy.

This bar? It also makes me happy.

When eating the S'mores bar, you are greeted with a chocolatey flavor, and lots of crunch.

In each bite, you will discover the brands wonderful mini chocolate chips, as well as some crunchy rice cereal. 

The even cooler part of these bars? They also have chunks of EL's Vanilla Honey Graham cookie.

The S'mores bar is a bit of a recycling ground for the delicious. Enjoy Life used a mixture of their product strengths, to create a new treat. Very innovative, if you ask me.

But back to the bar:

From the chocolate drizzle, the chips, the cookies, and the marshmallow "flavorettes" as they call them, this bar hits the s'mores spot.

It also hits the chocolate spot, which is a spot that often needs hitting 'round here. 

Now, the Cinnamon Bun Decadent bar.

At first glance of all the bars, I would have thought this flavor would have been my favorite.

I mean, I love chocolate and all, but a cinnamon bun! yummy-roo.

But while I found this bar good, It was certainly not my favorite. (not my least favorite either, though!}

This Cinnamon Bun bar, appears as a regular, allergy filled cereal bar. You would assume, without seeing the box-that it would have a old timing man in a blue hat on the front, you know the kind.

But alas, it is not! 

However, it does sure taste like breakfast; which is fine by me. I like breakfast.

After taking a bite, your mouth will be treated to the flavors of cinnamon and orange. As you go on, you'll discover bits of apple and raisins. 

It also has rice crisps in it, but has a much softer feel to it than the s'mores bar.

So does it taste like a cinnamon bun, fresh from the mall kiosk?

No.

But it does taste like a warm bowl of breakfast oatmeal.

So if your into that, this bar is for you! 

I certainly liked this bar, but would have liked it a lot better had the orange flavor been a little more subtle. but thats just me--I am very sensitive to those kind of things.

Forward and onward, 

to the

Cherry Cobbler Decadent bar.

Now heres where I get a little lost en route to flavortown. 

This bar is certainly my least favorite of the four flavors.

The flavor profile to this bar is pretty simple to that of its namesake. Tart cherries, with an essence of cinnamon and cloves.

To me, it tastes a bit like potpourri infused cough syrup.

To another taste tester (I like to make these tastings a family affair) it was their favorite of the bunch, and reminded them of Christmas.

Moral of the story: to each their own.

Just because it was not my fave, does not mean it won't be yours!

Moving on.

Chocolate Sunbutter Decadent bar.

This little fella, was my favorite.

It is chocolate heaven with a side of nutty goodness, wrapped up in more chocolate.

As with all the bars, it has a base of rice crisps, quinoa flakes, and various gf flours to enhance the texture.

This bar also has cocoa and sunflower butter added to it, for a perfect storm of chewy, chocolatey and nutty.

The sunbutter is actually pretty subtle in the bar, so that its mostly chocolate with just a hint of nut.

I like it.

So my friends, that was another Food Find Friday!

and it was another delicious product from Enjoy Life Foods.

Who's suprised? Not me, that's for sure.

I love that I can always count on Enjoy Life to have a delicious snack for me to eat without worry of the dreaded contamination.

I can also always count on them to have super cute bar codes.

See:

Look through my other Enjoy Life Foods product reviews to spot other cute barcodes. Every product has a different one :)

Also, go out and get some of these bars!

Try them out for yourselves, and let me know what you think!

Do you agree with my opinions, or are you the complete opposite?

{I sent a special care package of bars to my allergy ridden nephew/sous chef to test on his vacation this week. I'll let you know the opinions of a 10year old on this product, as soon as I hear them}

Enjoy!

and thank you for tuning in to another carina show :)

**while the products reviewed today where provided for testing, no monetary compensation was provided. The opinions on this sight are wholly my own without further influence.

S'mores Marshmallow Pops

Its a new post! Hurray, hurray!!

I really have no excuse to my slacking, other than I have five hundred, twenty-seven million things to do. 

Planning a fabulous party takes a lot of work.

Especially when you decide to do things that take three years and a day to create.

There are a lot of numbers in this post. I guess my subconscious is just itching to get back to the medical billing world. Who woulda thought?

But about this post:

I love s'mores.

Small children love s'mores.

Grammas love s'mores.

I know this for a fact; an extensive study was done with both small children and grammas.

Memorial day as passed, which means summer is going into full bloom pretty soon.

S'mores are a summer essential, a must for warm beach days or weekend camping trips.

{although as a person who rarely does either, s'mores are also perfect to eat in your own home, toasted over the stove or warm bbq. I live within ten minutes of like five beaches. I really should go there more often.}

Kids like things on sticks. I like that feeding children things on sticks, minimizes the mess. Slightly.

Not having melted ooey gooey marshmallow and dripping chocolate mess all over hands and clothes, sure makes me happy.

Oh gosh, I really want an ooey gooey full blown s'more.

 Right this minute. 

Give me one please.

To make a marshmallow S'mores on a stick, you must follow a very intense process.

Do you think you can handle it?

Here it goes:

What you need: Large marshmallows, chocolate chips, gf graham crackers {or, if the store you are at does not carry gf graham crackers any longer, but do carry Enjoy life crunchy cookies::crumble up some honey graham cookies instead}

-Stick a stick {:)} into a jumbo marshmallow.

-Melt some chocolate

-Crumble some gluten free graham crackers 

-Dip marshmallow on a stick into melted chocolate, about 3/4 of the way. (so the mallow shows a little)

-roll mallow dipped in chocolate into cookie crumbs.

-Let dry.

-Stuff them in your face.

Hard work. I know.

Here are the two sizes of marshmallows for your viewing:

on the left is the super-duper jumbo marshmallow, and on the right is a regular large marshmallow.

I found the jumbos to be too large. The quantity of mallow to chocolate to cookies, were way off.

But thats just me.

 Enjoy! 

Anytime, not just on a summer beach day, over the camp fire.

Those days are for the real bizzness.

New Allergen Friendly Products

Have you heard?

Just announced, Enjoy Life's newest product: Decadence bars.

They look sooo yummy, and I can't wait to get them in my belly! Coming to stores near you (hopefully) May 2013.

to read more about it, see Enjoy Life's blog here.

Also announced for arrival:

From Glutino:

Toaster Pastries, which I am beyond excited for. Pop Tarts are one of those special things I crave all the time. I just wonder why the gluten free ones don't have frosting. Thats really the best part.
and Pretzel Chips.
read about those here.








From Udis:

They hava a whole slew of new products coming out. Including, granola cluster, ancient grain crackers, granola bars, and some new cookie flavors.

I spot a Maple Pecan Chocolate chip something that sounds really yummy..
You can check out their website here.






No new news (thats a mouth full) on what Rudis will be revealing, but they did recently create a line of tortillas which I am hoping to try one of these days. The spinach ones look especially tasty,
Rudis website here.




It so exciting that these days there are so many great Gf products on the market, and that these companies continually strive to create new and tasty recipes for us all to enjoy.
I only wish I got to go to all these expos that are starting to go down, and try them out for myself. sigh.


What gluten free products are you most excited for? Any particular foods you miss since going GF?


This is not a sponsored post, purely me sharing good news!

Food Find Friday: Enjoy Life Chewy Bars

I have to admit that this new year is really bringing me down.

I miss Christmas.

I miss my tree, the music, and the rain.

Things will get better, I'm sure-as more holidays and adventures come about.

Its hard living in a place where the weather is so confused, ya know? Is it winter, or should I be prepping up for fourth of July? One day sweating in shorts, the next freezing to death in all the cardigans you own layered over each other because why on earth would you own a winter coat in California?

Anyway, now that thats off my chest...

Right after Christmas, as the depression was setting in and the mail piles where dwindling, I received a very special package.

Inside this special box, where four boxes of Enjoy Life's Chewy bars. One of each of their different flavors.

Here they are:

Cocoa Loco, Very Berry, Caramel Apple, and Sunbutter Crunch.

As you should all well know by now, Enjoy Life products are all free of the eight common allergens, and made in a dedicated nut and gluten free bakery.

What you should also know-and probably do if you've ever had their products- that all the products are absolutely delicious.

This product, is one that I have purchased many times in the past. There are very few gluten/dairy free bars out there that taste good. In fact there are quite a few that are just plain gross. 

Not these little guys though..

Lets break em down, shall we?

Caramel Apple:

These ones are by far the most frequent visitors in my house. Everyone from my two year old nephew, to my I-won't-say-how-old parentals love them.

They have a great cinnamon flavor to them, and delicious itty-bitty bites of dried apples.

Very Berry:

This flavor is actually my least favorite of the bunch. The bar itself tastes great-very similiar to the caramel apple flavor, without the "caramel" flavors.

I'm not sure why I don't love this one... I have no problem eating them. I think its the berries in there, and maybe because they are just not as flavorful as the others? I dunno..

moving on:

Cocoa Loco:

Chocolate! Yum, need I say more?

I shall anyway-

These deliciously chocolate bars are great. They have just the right amount of chocolate goodness in them to cure your chocolate cravings. In fact, I most often eat these as a dessert. They cure a sugar need perfectly, so I don't need the lesser healthy cookie and or cake option.

Last, but certainly not least:

Sunbutter Crunch:

These little fellas where the only flavor I had yet to try. I had seen them at the store before, but for some reason bringing them home never appealed to me. {it was probably the sunflower seeds on the front, they just scream healthy ya know? who wants that..}

Boy was I wrong.

This flavor might actually be my new fave. It is creamy, crunchy and nutty. The perfect mid-morning snack.

So friends, moral of the story-these bars are a great investment.

They are perfect for a breakfast, snack or dessert on the go.

My only problem?

There are only five to a box

and they are too small.

But I can live with that just fine.

{aren't these bar codes just the cutest? Bet you can't guess what belongs to which!}

To read up on my other Enjoy Life reviews, click here.

{While the products reviewed today where provided for my testing, no monetary compensation was given, The thoughts, opinions and photos on this site are wholly my own without influence.}