2010 Holiday Gift Guide: Yummy Food for the Season

Tis the season to enjoy good eating! The great thing about the holidays is that it gives foodies a reason to indulge in all of their favorite delicacies. It also gives them a chance to share their love of food in terms of holiday giving. Whether you plan to give cookies, flavored spreads, or cheesy delights, these are some of the best holiday options that you are going to find. We’ve tasted things high and low to find the best option for mom, dad, and even the kids! Each item here will be sure to please someone in your family, possibly even you!

Make sure to stop back by and let us know if you tried any of the items below and if you enjoyed them as much as we did! We cannot wait to hear what you think!

WineTime Chocolate Bars:
WineTime chocolate bars and actual wine have something in common. Reservatrol is a powerful antioxidant that is found in grapes. It has such health benefits that scientists have claimed that it could explain how French citizens can have such a fatty diet and yet remain fairly healthy. WineTime Bars take the reservatrol from the wine and create a chocolate bar that you won’t soon forget. The suspected health benefits are nice, but they wouldn’t mean much if the chocolate didn’t taste good. Come to find out, I would be pleasantly surprised with what I received in WineTime. Each bar contains various super fruits (cranberry, pomegranate, acai, and blueberry), along with dates and almonds all hiding in delicious dark chocolate. The result is a chewy, rich chocolate bar that tastes fabulous and is healthier for you than you could imagine.

You can pick up WineTime Bars at the WineTime website, where you can learn more about Resveratrol and about WineTime. Pricing options include a 10 bar pack for $29.90, a 20 bar monthly package for $59.80, and a 40 bar “family pack” for $89.70.

Green and Blacks Organic Chocolate Bars:
There are no words to describe how much I truly love Green & Black’s organic chocolate bars. I like to consider myself a chocolate snob. Not all brands do it for me. I tend to only prefer dark chocolates and find milk chocolates to be revolting in most cases. However, Green & Black’s tends to be an exception to this rule. The folks at G&B’s were nice enough to send us a variety of the bars to try out. Among the options were Milk, Dark, Toffee, Peanut, Maya Gold, and Mint. All of them were fabulous, though I personally was partial to the dark, toffee, and peanut. I liked the mint, but you have to really enjoy mint to enjoy this candy bar because it offers an intensley strong mint flavor that many mint chocolate bars lack. If you’re planning chocolate in the stocking this year, do yourself a favor and get Green & Black’s for the whole family – they have a variety of selections that are sure to satisfy all the different tastes in your home.

You can learn more about Green & Black’s at the Green & Black’s website. If you are looking for some stocking stuffers you can find Green & Black’s in most places where chocolate is sold, including stores such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, and Kroger. Prices will vary, but in most cases you find find Green & Blacks for around $2 a bar.

Cari-Free Lollipops:
CariFree Lollies are great for kids and parents whether we’re talking holidays or anytime of year. Kids will enjoy the five tasty flavors including cherry, grape, lime, citrus, and raspberry. Parents will like the fact that each lollie contains .5g of xylitol, which helps to fight cavities and removes cavity-causing bacteria. This is a perfect mid-day treat because it will get some tooth defense in between the morning and night brushing. These are sugar free, but still taste good so kids should like them as much as any other lollipop. According to the website, you shouldn’t eat more than 20 of these per day. I don’t know anyone that offers their child more than 20 suckers though, so this shouldn’t be a major issue though. These would be great for stocking stuffers. The kids don’t even have to know that they are good for them and their teeth!

You can learn more about CariFree products at the CariFree website. Currently a 24-lollie, variety pack comes to $12.50 on the website. Prices likely do not include shipping.

PopChips:
PopChips are the best and most mysterious chips that you will ever truly enjoy. They taste like traditional chips. They taste fried, fatty, and utterly delicious. The funny thing is that they aren’t fried and they aren’t fatty. They are delicious though! Offering a chip with some good crunch and fabulous flavors, PopChip offers a healthy snack alternative that tastes about a million times better than baked or other healthy chips. These yummy chips taste like the chips that you crave without all the crap you don’t need. As a result after one of these chips you will be hooked and that won’t be a bad thing. With flavors like Parmesan Garlic and Cheddar Potato, traditional chip lovers should be very happy. They are also inexpensive (no more than most regular brands), All-Natural, and easy to find (available at Whole Foods, Target, and other retailers).

Check out more about PopChips or Read our PopChips Review!

The Fresh Market Good Cheer Basket:
We often have adverse things to say about gift baskets. After receiving a stale, seemingly outdated gift basket from Bea’s Gift Baskets earlier in the year we’ve been weary about the things that we consider for review in this area. However, The Fresh Market looked so yummy it was hard to say no. So, we agreed to check out The Good Cheer Basket and come to find out this was the best gift basket we reviewed all year! Filled with tasty goodies like pistachios, peanuts, sesame sticks, crackers, Nueske’s Summer Sausage, stone ground mustard, Jelly Belly’s, and other great items, The Good Cheer basket will be sure to please even the pickiest snacker. A box of Back to Nature Chocolate Chip Cookies and some amazing, Kell Bran Caramel Popcorn are also included. At $49.99 the Good Cheer basket is worth every penny.

The Fresh Market also offers a number of other holiday goodies and gift baskets to suit all tastes and budgets.

Navitas Naturals Chocolate Kit:
One of the best part of the holidays is the food! I love baking and enjoying the fine treats that we get to make each year. The last couple of years we’ve received a chocolate making kit each year to review. I was nervous with my first one, but I’ve since learned that there is nothing to making chocolate in kits like this. Navitas Naturals makes chocolate making a snap with easy instructions and all of the ingredients laid out as they should be. You can choose from a variety of kits that offer additions of the most important super foods into your chocolate. If I didn’t know better I would think the super foods were an excuse to eat more of the chocolate! These make great family gifts for friends that love chocolate. They are inexpensive, delicious, and offer a chance for some fun family friendly memories.

You can learn more about these Organic Chocolate Making Kits at the Navitas Naturals website.

Vosges Baking Mixes: When I received an email from Vosges and it included the moniker “Haute Chocolate,” I couldn’t help but laugh. That was because at the time, I was not very familiar with the company. I knew they offered chocolates and yummy eatables, but that was about it. The folks at Vosges offered to send us some baking mixes to see if they would make the cut for the guide. We received Vosges Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix, Caramel Toffee Chocolate Chunk Brownies, and Super Duper Sugar Cookies. All I can say is you HAVE to try these! Vosges definitely earned the haute chocolate label they use! Each box comes with all of the dry ingredients in the box. All ingredients are the top of the line and it shows in the final result. Make sure to read your boxes for all the instruction you need to make the perfect dessert. In order to make most of the mixes you will need things like water, oil, milk, unsalted butter, and/or vanilla depending on the mix. A card with detailed instructions comes with each mix, allowing even the most inexperienced baker a chance to shine in the kitchen this holiday!

Vosges mixes are perfect gifts for your favorite foodie. Alternately, if you like to give food oriented gifts that you’ve baked yourself you could pick up some Vosges mixes and make some cookies and brownies that will blow your mind. You can learn more about these amazing bake mixes at the Vosges website.

Fairytale Brownies:
Earlier in the year we reviewed Fairytale Brownies. They did not ask to be included in this gift guide, but they did submit their product for review and they were so good we felt we couldn’t leave them out here. You can choose between two flavors of Fairytale Cookies or a scrumptious selection of brownies. In a standard dozen you receive such flavors as Original, Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Cream Cheese, Espresso Nib, Mint Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Pecan, Raspberry Swirl, Toffee Crunch, Walnut and White Chocolate. It’s been awhile since we indulged, but if memory serves correctly there was not one specific flavor that we didn’t like. We even went as far as to fight over a couple.

Okay, we’re not proud of it, but they were so good, we just couldn’t help ourselves. A standard dozen is around $40, but for the moist, melt-in-your-mouth brownies that you receive you won’t think twice about what you paid for them. They are worth the price you pay as they end up putting a smile on the face of everyone I have seen eat one. It’s no wonder the brand name is Fairytale Brownies – it’s hard to believe these are as good as they are. We even won a few brownie haters over when we tried them out last time!

You can learn more about these delish brownies at the Fairytale Brownies website or you can check out our Fairytale Brownies review!

Swiss Colony Products:
Swiss Colony is one of those brands that nearly everyone is familiar with. Chances are you’ve received their catalogs and have viewed their website. If you’re like me, despite all this advertising and the delicious appearing food, you’ve never tried them. Rectifying that was one of the best decisions that I made this whole holiday season. I’ve only had a chance to try two things from Swiss Colony so far, but I can say that they will not be the last things we try. We received the Reindeer Torte (ribbons upon ribbons of rich fudge creme and tender chocolate cake blanketed in milk chocolate) and some Incredible Spreadables with Crisps. In the case of the latter item, we received the $19.95 set that includes Mellow Cheddar and Herb Garden Cheese along with three flavors of crisps. I don’t recall asking for either item, but I have to say that the whole review team loved them! The items arrived just before lunch and we had to force ourselves to stop eating the crisps and cheese and start eating our lunch. On the plus side, the Reindeer Torte provided some excellent dessert and the combination of both items made some future customers out of us!

You can learn more about all of the delicious items for gifts (or to indulge on your own) at Swiss Colony. We will also be reviewing both items soon (look out for the links to come soon).

The Fresh Market Pumpkin Butter:
Rounding out our holiday guide this year is Pumpkin Butter from The Fresh Market. I was skeptical about this when we first received it, merely because of the presence of apricot in the butter. Dom loved TFM Pumpkin Butter more than any pumpkin item that we’ve had recently. I liked it, though I admit, I was not as in love with it. I felt that in many bites I got more apricot and less pumpkin. Ignoring the pumpkin name, the flavored butter is actually quite good. If you have a fan of jellies, jams, and flavored butters in your family, this will win them over. Each bottle is available for $5 and is well worth every penny.

To learn more about TheFreshMarket Pumpkin Butter or other great products in the lineup we recommend checking out The Fresh Market website.

Technorati Tags: 2010 Holiday Gift Guide, Yummy Food, Season’s Greetings, Season’s Eatings, Candy, Cookies, Chocolate, Gift Basket, The Fresh Market, Vosges, PopChips, Holidays

Written by Dom & Ash Evans – Visit Website
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Dominick and Ashtyn have been together since 2002. Together, they live in Michigan, work together as pro bloggers, and homeschool and raise their 15 year old son, CT. Their interests are diverse. Ashtyn loves to write, listen to music, shop and enjoy the finer things in life. Dominick enjoys playing wheelchair sports, watching sports, acting, singing, playing video games and making movies.