Good & Gather Sugar Cookie Granola

Sugar cookie granola, eh? How they gonna pull that off? Crumble sugar cookies all through a bag of regular granola? Will it just be extra sweet? Hmmm. It's worth buying a bag just to find out...

And it does seem sweeter than regular granola. There's definitely a sugar cookie vibe here. But a quick glance at the ingredients will tell you they didn't throw chunks of traditional wheat flour-based sugar cookies into the mix. They pulled it off with rice.

Kind of an interesting choice, but it works. There's rice flour and brown rice syrup in addition to the rolled oats and cane sugar you might have expected. I like it. 

Simple, sweet, and not too far a cry from any type of classic granola cereal you have on a regular basis. The rice makes the whole thing a little lighter and crispier than typical dense, chewy granola.

There's a recipe for a holiday parfait on the back of the bag. It basically involves putting this granola on yogurt. Gee, I never could have thought of that myself, Target. But in the spirit of the holidays, I'll tone down the sarcasm.

It's a good product. I'd buy it again next year, although it may be repackaged by then under the Favorite Day brand. What ever happened to the Wondershop at Target? $4.49 for the 11 oz bag.

I give this cereal 8 out of 10 Christmas stars.

Favorite Day Santa's Sweet Tooth Indulgent Snack Mix

We've got the first snow of the season here in the upper midwest today. It's a nice start to the Christmas season, but the sky is very gloomy and overcast and it's difficult to get a decent picture of the jar since I rely on natural lighting for most of these product pics.

It also doesn't help that the sticker putter onner guy was slacking and left a bunch of creases and bubbles when he slapped on the label. Oh well. Quiet quitting is a thing now.

Note: this is a snack mix rather than a trail mix. It is not expressly intended for consumption while hiking or biking on trails or doing anything active. This product is for shoveling down your gullet while your fat butt is glued to the couch as you watch Christmas movies and guzzle egg nog.

At first glance, there appear to be four or five elements in this trail mix, er...excuse me, snack mix. However, there are only three. The "white chocolatey-covered cookie balls" are colored both red and green...you know, for Christmas. The green ones look very similar to wasabi peas. And they're okay. They taste cookies n' cream-ish enough. They're smooth on the outside and crunchy on the inside. They're good for a handful or two every so often.

The "chocolate cookies" are my least favorite part of the mix. They're like generic mini Oreos without the filling. Who wants Oreos without the filling? Nobody, that's who. They're super dry. They make me want to cough. These cookies would be like "gifts" you stick in a bad kid's stocking.

And finally, there are "cookies and cream flavored white chocolaty covered almonds." Holy crap. Favorite Day finally brought out the big guns. These things are delicious. And as far as I can tell, they constitute about 2% of the whole jar. Seriously? You give us just enough of these things to know what we're missing out on? Sad. Target, you're stingy.

Make a pack of the cookies and cream almonds ONLY, Target, and we'll talk.

Eleven bucks for this slightly disappointing jar of Favorite Day Santa's Sweet Tooth Indulgent Snack Mix.

I give this mix 6 out of 10 stars. It would have been 7 or 8 if there had been more of the almonds.