Golden Nuggets

It felt so good to come home after just being away for 36 hours. Nothing like my own bed, my own hot shower, and my own kitchen to make me happy.

While I was in San Francico, I stumbled into a small natural-foods market, Harvest Urban Market, that was walking distance from my hotel.

It was a fairly small grocery store, but had a wide array of natural, organic, and specialty foods like Whole Foods does, and they also had some more mainstream products like Peanut M & Ms. Hotel beds while traveling alone are more inviting with a bag of M & Ms next to me.

I also curled up in bed with these Tropical Golden Nuggets.

I think the ingredients are probably tofu powder not power

And I have vanilla extract on hand but am fresh out of va if nilla extract

And diced fruit to medley. Wonder who wrote this ingredients list? My tastebuds don’t care about grammar errors, though.

I had to force myself not to eat this entire tub on the flight home yesterday because I wanted to take pictures of them at home and blog about them because they are that good.

The are a little dry and crumbly and normally I hate dry and crumbly but it totally worked with these.

I am thinking the tofu power powder (whatever that is, possibly protein powder?) was partly responsible for the “base” dough and the seeds, the nuts, the raisins and dried fruit, cereal, peanut butter, pineapple, va if nilla vanilla; what a delicious hodgepodge both in terms of flavor and texture. I must recreate these somehow.

Lately I have been on a tempeh kick and thinking possibly starting with tempeh and going from there.

I have a few ideas already.

Edited to add: A reader just commented that these nuggets are from Chunks of Energy in the Mixed Berry flavor, widely available at Whole Foods. Ironically, I partnered with Chunks of Energy 2 or 3 years ago and hosted a giveaway with them and loved their products then, and now!

The other thing I picked up while at Urban Market in San Fran was this empty cookie wrapper.

I wonder how that happened?

These were the best ginger spice cookies I’ve ever had. Period. And I am so picky with cookies! These were truly spectacular.

I had intended to not even open them and save them for the plane ride and then I ate one. And then ate the second one that was in the package. That good.

Full of ginger, spice, super super soft and chewy.

The bonus is that they are vegan, no dairy, no eggs, no refined sugar, and wheat free. How do they do that and make them taste so amazing?

If you like really soft, tender, and chewy ginger, molasses, or spice cookies with a strong hit of ginger, try a No Cookie Cookie. Amazing.

I make these Cookie Butter Spread Ginger Molasses Cookies (No Bake, Vegan, with GF option) but comparing baked and no-bake cookies (and one using cookie butter and chocolate) is like comparing apples and oranges.

Here’s another gingery twist in these Gingerbread Cookie Dough Balls (Raw, Vegan, Gluten-Free)

Have you found any golden little nuggets lately?

New foods, new recipe, new product, new eyeliner, new dishes, any fun gems that have come across your path?

When I was in Aruba over the holidays I found these crunchy peas. It apparently took leaving the country and shopping in a foreign grocery store for me to realize how amazing peas can be in that form.

Do you know of any storebought cookies, either “natural and organic”, vegan, or not, that are truly fabulous?

I’m of the mindset that when it comes to cookies, 95% of the time homemade is better because I can underbake them and keep them super soft and chewy or customize the dough how I want it.

But I make exceptions for Samoas, Thin Mints, and Oreos.

Thanks for the Kitchen Aid 7-Quart Stand Mixer entries

And the Tofu Xpress Tofu Press Giveaway entries