Osem and Bagel Bagel's Shavuot Crackers

Cheese and crackers are one of the staples for many Shavuot tables, so both Bagel Bagel and Osem have new crackers on the shelf just in time for the Holiday.

Osem has two new crackers with festive flower decorated wrappers. First we have a Wheat Cracker with Sesame & Roman Coriander Seeds and the second one is a Lightly Salted Cereal Grain Cracker. 

The Wheat Cracker with Sesame & Roman Coriander Seeds is a very dry cracker, but I guess it would be a good "base cracker" for a dip or a cheese spread. It was crispy and crunchy, just the way a cracker should be.

The sesame and roman-coriander (black cumin) seeds do add a bit of texture and a drop of flavor to the cracker, but not much. I'd say that’s a good thing because the seeds won't really interfere with whatever you spread on the cracker.

Bottom Line: I think the Wheat Cracker with Sesame & Roman Coriander Seeds was a perfectly fine, dry cracker. I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary or extra special.

Kosher Parve Badatz

170 gram package – 6.99 NIS



אסם קרקר דגנים במלוחות עדינה



The Lightly Salted Cereal-Grain Cracker was a more interesting cracker. It was very lightly salted, when I ate it alone I thought it actually could have used a bit more salt but if you're going to add cheese or a dip its probably better that it's so lightly salted.

This cracker was more crumbly and more oily than the Wheat Cracker with Sesame and Roman Coriander Seeds.

I thought the cereal-grains and seeds in this Lightly Salted Cereal-Grain Cracker made it a very interesting and enjoyable cracker. They added a different texture and a nice flavor to the cracker.

Bottom Line: I found the Lightly Salted Cereal-Grain Cracker tasty, somewhat unique and rich. I think it would be nice with cheese or dips but I also enjoyed eating on its own.

Both Osem Crackers have no artificial food coloring in them.

Kosher Parve Badatz

165 gram package – 6.99 NIS



בייגל בייגל קרקר
חיטה מלאה בנגיעות דבש



And finally we have a Whole-Wheat Cracker with a touch of Honey from Bagel Bagel

This is a crispy and crunchy cracker and I think it’s the perfect thickness; not too thick and not too thin. Sort of like the other Bagel Bagel whole wheat cracker from their "Neshnushim" line, which I like.

The other day, at the supermarket, they were giving out samples of this cracker with a sharp cheddar cheese, if I remember correctly. I actually enjoyed the combination of the sharp cheese with this sweeter cracker. The flavors seemed to work well together. But then when I tasted this cracker at home, without cheese, I didn’t really enjoy it.

I understand what Bagel Bagel was thinking when they were developing this cracker. And I get why they débuted it now, right before Shavuot. It can be a wonderful addition to a wine and cheese party.

Although it's not an overly sweet cracker the honey flavor is present, so those who enjoy a "honey sweet" flavor will be happy to have another new cracker option.

Bagel Bagel's Whole-Wheat with a touch of Honey crackers have no artificial food coloring, no preservatives, no trans-fats and no cholesterol.  

Bottom Line: Although I like sweet/savory combos, there was something about this cracker on its own that just didn’t hit it out of the park for me. If I was having a wine and cheese party I would put this cracker on the table, among other crackers, but otherwise I think I'll give this Whole-Wheat with a touch of Honey Cracker a miss.

300 gram bag 12.79 NIS

Kosher Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Napopizza's Mozzarella & Mushroom Pizza

I noticed this new line of frozen pizza in Mega Bool the other day. The photo on the box looked so enticing, I had to try it. I know better than to "judge a book by its cover" but since I'm not a huge fan of Ma'adanot frozen pizza, I thought it would be nice to know if there is any good frozen pizza available in the supermarket here.

There are 4 Napopizza options; Pizza Margareta Mozzarella & Mushrooms, Pizza Margareta Mozzarella, Pizza Margareta Mozzarella & Corn and Pizza Margareta Mozzarella & Olives. I tried the mushroom one.

Sure enough the pizza itself looks nothing like the photo on the box. I don’t know what the photographer photographed but it surly was not the product they put in the package.

One thing that struck me as very different to the box was the abundance of shredded cheese all over the pie. It seemed like a good thing, because I really like when pizza has soft, stringy, melted cheese oozing off the slice with every bite, so I was hopeful that’s what all this shredded cheese would do.

I put the pie in the oven, shortly after I noticed a puddle of water had formed in the center of the pie. That was not a good sign, yes I know it's frozen but I had not noticed a lot of ice on the pie before it went into the oven. Maybe the water was coming from the mushrooms? I don’t know, but there was so much water I actually carefully patted it off with a paper-towel and put the pie back in the oven.

After quite a long time, way more than the suggested 4 minutes, I took the pizza out of the oven.

My next disappointment was that the cheese tasted rubbery, it was far from the soft oozing melted cheese I was hoping for.

The pie must have been very water logged because although the crust was perfectly crispy the rest of the pie still tasted raw and undercooked. Yet again, even though I had already sliced the pizza, I put the other 3 slices back in the oven.

No matter how long I left it in the over it just did seem to bake the center of the pie. Yes it completely dried out all the cheese and the crust started burning but the dough under the cheese and above the crust just did not bake. Like I said, it could be it was the mushrooms fault, but whatever the case, I really did not enjoy the pizza at all.

Bottom Line: Maybe I should have kept it simple and bought the plain Pizza Margareta Mozzarella but considering how waterlogged and tasteless this unbakeable mushroom pie was, I have no intention of spending another Shekel on any Napopizza product ever again.

370-400 gram pie 17.99 NIS

Kosher Dairy Cholov Yisrael Triangle K D

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Tzuriel's Goats-Milk Yogurt & Muller's Yogurt with Dark-Chocolate Shavings

With Shavuot just around the corner there are a few new yogurts on the market, 2 of which intrigued me and I decided to try them.

Firstly, we have Tzuriel's Mildly Sweetened Goats-Milk Yogurt

צוריאל יוגורט עיזים

Tzuriel Dairy is a private fresh-farm dairy located in Israel’s Lower Galilee region. According to their website, Tzuriel's goal is to develop healthy, natural products with an outstanding taste. This yogurt is the first product of theirs that I have tried. I have to say I think they absolutely succeeded in this case.

I thought this Mildly Sweetened Whole Goats-Milk Yogurt was exactly that. It has a wonderful rich and creamy consistency. This yogurt is not too sweet but not very sour either. I found it very enjoyable and refreshing.

I think it was delicious just as is, but it's also a great base yogurt, you can surly add some granola, fresh fruit or anything else you like in your yogurt.

Tzuriel's Mildly Sweetened Goats Milk Yogurt has about 3.3% fat.

I also noticed Tzuriel's new peach, strawberry and wild-berry goats-milk yogurts in the store refrigerator.

Bottom Line: I really like Tzuriel's Mildly Sweetened Goats-Milk Yogurt. It definitely lived up to what they promised it to be. Since I really enjoyed it I'm likely to try their other products and see if they are just as good.

150 gram container – 5.69 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Next we have Muller's Bianco Yogurt with Dark-Chocolate Shavings.



מולר יוגרט קרמי עם שוקולד

I mentioned in my review of the Dark-Chocolate Egozi Bar and in my review of Fitness's Dark Chocolate Cereal Bar (and maybe a just a few 100 more times on this blog J) that I really like bittersweet-chocolate so a creamy bio yogurt with dark-chocolate shavings sounds perfectly wonderful to me, and truthfully it was.

Muller's Bianco Creamy Yogurt with 60% Dark Chocolate Cocoa-Solids shavings was sweeter than Tzuriel's goats-milk yogurt but, it was not overly sweet, I thought it actually had a nice sweet to sour balance.

This Muller yogurt was not as thick as Tzuriel's yogurt but I'd say the consistency here was wonderful too.

Muller was generous with the amount of dark-chocolate shavings they added to the yogurt. The chocolate added a nice, rich bittersweet flavor yet at the same time it didn’t overpower the yogurt. For me it was a perfect combination of flavors.

Muller's Bianco has no artificial food coloring and no preservatives added. This yogurt has 5.7% fat.

Muller Bianco Yogurt with Chocolate Shavings is also available in an orange or cherry yogurt.

Bottom Line: Being a big fan of bittersweet chocolate I really enjoyed Muller's Bianco Yogurt with Dark-Chocolate Shavings. I think it will make a wonderful snack or even healthier dessert for Shavuot and beyond. At the moment it’s a limited edition product but I really hope it will become a permanent addition to our store shelves.

150 gram container- 4.90 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Osem's Bisli Shpitz 'ביסלי שפיץ'

ביסלי שפיץ

A few months ago, before I started this blog, Osem developed a new Bisli Snack, but they did not give it a name or tell us what flavor it is. Instead the package had three question marks where the flavor would have been written.

The idea was for the public to go to the Bisli Face-Book page and suggest flavor names. Then from some of the names suggested there was a vote to choose the "fan- favorite".

This "You Choose the Name/Flavor" campaign lead to a whopping amount of suggestions, Over 31,000, according to Osem.

Some of the top suggested names for this new Bisli were Magic, Surprise and Munchie.

With about 70,000 votes for the winning name which is "SHPITZ".

The slang definition of Shpitz is; Sharp point (as in a pencil) /Peck /The Best /Top of the Top (as in someone who's really good at what he does).

 

Seeing as this Bisli is shaped like a triangle I understand the connection to Shpitz, but none of the suggestions or the winning name gives us any indication of the flavor. If I'm not mistaken all other Bisli names are based on the snacks flavor. So although I think it was a clever campaign on Osem's part, because they succeeded in getting people interested in trying the new Bisli, I'm still kind of disappointed with the chosen name.

This new Shpitz Bisli is not my favorite of their snacks. I didn’t really like it but I wouldn’t say it was awful. I actually had a hard time placing the flavor. When my friend tasted it she suggested that the flavor is sort of a combination of Bisli Pizza Wheels and Bisli BBQ. I agree with her, that is kind of what it tasted like to me.

Bottom Line: Although my friend liked this new Bisli flavor, her kids and I were not really impressed with it. Aside from which, I think it's an odd name and I don’t like that the name tells us nothing about the flavor.

70 gram bag 4.00 NIS

Kosher Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Ma'adanot's Sweet-Potato Bourekas (Turnovers/Puffs)

מעדנות בורקס פילו בטטה

Ma'adanot, known for their frozen pizzas and bourekas have a new line of frozen bourekas.

In an attempt to make a healthier product Ma'adanot used canola oil in the phyllo dough of these bourekas, as opposed to margarine. According to the press release these bourekas have 70-80% less saturated fat than Ma'adanots other bourekas.

There are 4 flavors in this new line of bourekas; Sweet-Potato, Spinach, Broccoli and Mushrooms. I tasted the Sweet-Potato one.

It did taste somewhat different to their other bourekas. To me it seemed lighter and less oily than turnovers made with margarine layered phyllo dough. I actually preferred this canola oil phyllo dough. Even thought I may not categorize turnovers as a healthy dish, I think it's wonderful that Ma'adanot are trying to give us a healthier option.

For some reason I was surprised that the sweet-potato filling had onions and black-pepper in it. I just assumed it would be more on the sweet side as opposed to a savory turnover. Seeing as I don’t love onions I was quite disappointed and would have preferred them not to have been there, but if you do like onions I think you would see them as a welcomed addition to the mix.

Maadanot's said that this line of bourekas has about 40% more filling than there other products. I actually did think it had a nice dough to filling ratio.

The bourekas come 12 in a package. I liked how the plastic they are sitting in is sectioned off so it holds each of them all in its place. I found it very convenient that I didn't have to work hard to separate them one from the other, when they were frozen. Unfortunately the package is not reclosable so I had to transfer what I wasn't using, at the moment, into a vacuum packed zip-lock bag to protect them from freezer burn.

Bottom Line: Had this Ma'adanot Sweet-Potato Boureka not had onions in it I think I would have enjoyed the turnover much more. I give them points for using canola oil and making a "lighter" boureka. I think it's a step in the right/healthier direction but there may be some people who will miss the margarine phyllo dough they are used to.

Update: Today, in Shufersal, they were giving out samples of this new Ma'adanot Bourekas, in the mushroom flavor.This one also had a large amount of onions in the filling. To me, the onion seemed to be the overpowering taste.

Another thing that struck me was that although the outside was golden-brown the inner layers of the dough were not properly cooked and tasted very doughy to me. I had the same situation with the sweet-potato ones, I had tasted for this review, but I thought it was because my oven might have been on too high, so it baked the outside too fast and left the inside undercooked. I had ended up cutting the sweet-potato ones in half lengthwise and putting them back in the over to bake some more. But when I tasted the sample at the supermarket today and it had the same issue I thought maybe it has something to do with the borurekas themselves. Or maybe the toaster-oven they were using at the sample stand was also on too high, I don't know, but I thought I would point it out to you.

600 gram package- 12 Bourekas – 19.00-22.00 NIS

Kosher- Parve Rabbinate Gan Yavne

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Nestlé's "Nok-Out" Mascarpone & Lemon Ice-Cream Bar

גלידות נסטלה נוק אאוט מסקרפונה לימון

After not loving the Ice-Cream part of Nestlé Crunch Roll Ice-Cream Pops I was hesitant to try another Nestlé ice-cream product, but the Mascarpone Lemon flavor really intrigued me.

Since my main issue with the ice-cream in the "Crunch Roll Bar" was the lack of real milk or cream, reading that this Nok-Out Mascarpone and Lemon Ice-Cream Bar has real butter in it made me think that this ice cream is likely to be a very different consistency, so I wanted to give it a shot and I'm really glad I did. The ice-cream in the Nok-Out Mascarpone and Lemon Bar was a soft, creamy delicious treat.

This mascarpone and lemon flavored Nok-Out bar has crumbled vanilla cookies mixed into the ice-cream and is coated with a nice layer of white chocolate.

I thought that all of the flavors work perfectly well together, none of them overpower or clash with each other. For me there was the perfect touch of lemon to play off the more dominant mascarpone flavor. I enjoyed the texture and taste that the vanilla cookies added to the mix and the white chocolate coating was an ideal topping for this wonderful indulgence.

This creamy "Nok-Out" Mascarpone and Lemon Ice-Cream Bar might be the perfect Shavuot treat.

I'm thrilled I didn’t let my previous disappointment with a Nestlé ice-cream product stop me from trying this delightful luxury.

Bottom Line: Nestlé's "Nok-Out" Mascarpone and Lemon Ice-Cream Bar is a sweet and rich ice-cream that I'd say is geared more toward adults. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed this somewhat unique flavored ice-cream bar.

90 gram Ice-Cream Bar – 9.00 -11.00 NIS

Kosher Dairy Badatz

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Strauss's Goat-Cheese Stuffed Ravioli

שטראוס רביולי במילוי גבינת עיזים

In honor of the fast approaching Shavuot  holiday Strauss has two new ravioli dishes on the market. The packages are even decorated with colorful festive flowers.

You have a choice of Goat Cheese stuffed Ravioli or Olive Tapenade & Cheese filled Ravioli. I tried the Goat Cheese stuffed Ravioli.

These Strauss ravioli are in the refrigerator section of the supermarket.They are made with fresh pasta and only need 1 minute of cooking in 8 cups of boiling water.

The packaging says that you can freeze the ravioli before opening and just add a few minutes to the cooking time. I did not freeze it and after the 1 minute cooking the pasta was still a little too "al dente" for my taste so I actually cooked it for just a bit longer than that.

For a commercial ravioli the pasta itself was fresh and enjoyable but I thought the goat cheese filling was awful. To me it tasted like a powdery, grainy artificial mixture. Aside from which, I thought it was too salty and tasted nothing like goat cheese.

As I was straining the pasta I noticed that there were many ravioli that didn't have any cheese filling, at first that disappointed me but after actually tasting the dish I was happy that I had some pasta without the dreadful "cheese" in it.

These Strauss Goat Cheese stuffed Ravioli packages do not come with a pasta sauce but they do have a suggested spinach, tomato and capers recipe on the back of the package.

Strauss's fresh ravioli has no preservatives added.

Bottom Line: Considering that I find preparing homemade fresh pasta ravioli somewhat time consuming I thought Strauss's fresh Goat Cheese stuffed Ravioli would be a fast and easy dish for a Shavuot meal, but after tasting the "cheese" filling I nixed that idea. Living in the "Land of Milk and Honey" I'm sure I'll find many more delicious cheese dishes to serve on Shavuot instead of this grainy tasting ravioli. 


400 gram package - 18.80 NIS

Kosher Dairy Rabbinate Karmiel

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Bagel Bagel's Safari Grill Pretzels

בייגל בייגל ספארי גריל

About a year ago, way before I began this blog, Bagel Bagel started their "Safari" line of pretzels. The Safari pretzels are small little animal shaped pretzel with an added flavor. These Safari pretzels are geared toward children.

The first Safari Pretzel was a pizza flavored pretzel. This new Safari Pretzel is grill flavored.

Seeing as there's a picture of a cute little bonfire on this Grill flavored Safari Pretzel package I thought this would be the perfect product to review today, in honor of all the Lag B'Omer Holiday bonfires.

Speaking of bonfires check out these super adorable bonfire cupcakes my friend made for Shabbat. I thought they were just the coolest Lag B'Omer cupcakes I have ever seen! I had to share them with you too J!

Now back to the Safari Grill flavored Pretzels.

The animal shapes you can find in the Safari Grilled flavored Pretzels are elephants, birds, ducks, cats, bears, turtles, camels and horses. Those are not exactly the animals I think of when I hear the word Safari but, I do think kids enjoy having fun shaped snacks. So I won't get petty about Bagel Bagel choosing the name safari as opposed to say Noah's Ark or something like that.

Bagel Bagel's Safari Pretzels are a baked snack. As with the pizza flavored Safari Pretzel I thought these grill flavored Safari Pretzels were too dry and over baked. The pretzel themselves are very small, each piece being no more than half an inch long, so it seems to me that it would be very easy to over bake such a small pretzel and sadly, that’s exactly what I think Bagel Bagel has done.

These pretzels have a definite grill flavoring which I actually enjoyed. I think that kids that like savory flavored snacks will enjoy the grill flavor on these Safari Pretzels.

At the moment the Safari Grill Pretzels are only available in a large 300 gram bag. My guess is that soon enough they will be sold in a smaller individual sized snack bag as well.

The Safari Grilled flavored Pretzels have no artificial food coloring and have no cholesterol in them.

Bottom Line: I like the idea of fun animal shaped snacks but in my opinion, these Bagel Bagel Safari Grill flavored Pretzels are too dry and over-baked which ruined the snack for me. For now I'll happily stick with my all time favorite pretzels Osem's Flat Salt Pretzels and hope that maybe the next Safari pretzel will be better than the past two have been.

300 gram bag- 10.99 NIS

Kosher Parve Badatz

  

This weeks Haveil Havalim blog carnival is now up on

The Rebbetzin's Husband blog

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.

Milka's Milkinis Chocolate

מילקה

Lately I've noticed more and more Milka chocolates in the candy aisle of the supermarket here. I'm not sure if all of them are new to our stores or maybe I just didn’t notice them until now.

Milkinis

One product that I know hit our shelves right before Passover is Milka's Milkinis. They're a milk-chocolate finger with a creamy milk filling.

Milkinis are geared toward children, and the 5 and 3 year old girls who tasted them enjoyed them very much.



Kinder

 They are similar to the popular Kinder chocolate fingers that also have a milk-cream filling, the ones that Elite tried to copy about a year ago.

I actually like that Milkinis are somewhat flatter and thinner than Kinder's and Elite's versions, it somehow makes them softer and nicer to bite into.



Like on Elites chocolates the Milka chocolate fingers have a cow shape embossed on each cube of the finger.

Compared to both the Kinder and Elite versions, the quality of Milka's chocolate fingers is by far the best of the bunch. Kinder's is somewhat less grainy than Elite's but to me Milka's was not at all grainy, it was "melt in your mouth" smooth and creamy.

Elite

The benefit that Elite's chocolate fingers have over both Kinder's and Milka's fingers is that the Elite ones are Cholov Yisrael whereas the other two are not

Milka's Milkinis come either 4 or 8 individually wrapped fingers in a package. 

The fingers are the perfect snack size for a child. Each kid will feel special that they got their own "bar" plus your guaranteed that they all get the same size chocolate, which will prevent any and all "she got a bigger piece than I did" so win-win all around.

50% of each Milkinis finger is milk, so although there are much healthier and more natural ways for kids to get their daily calcium it's interesting to know that there is so much milk in this chocolate treat.

Bottom Line: I thought Milka's Milkinis were a really good quality children's chocolate finger. They were soft, creamy and sweet. Of the 3 chocolate milk-cream filled fingers, available here, I think Milkinis are by far the winner. 

Box of 4 Milkinis 43.7 grams – 5.00 NIS

Box of 8 Milkinis 87.5 grams – 8.00 NIS

Kosher Dairy Triangle K

אבקת חלב נוכרי

 

Disclaimer: All items were purchased by me. No one is paying me for this review. All opinions are my own.