Monday, May 5, 2014

Foodiepages April 2014 Tasting Box Review!

 The Foodiepages.ca April tasting box is fairly new to me.
So far I have been lucky to order March and April's box and by "accident" also got the Feb box.
By accident, I mean I placed an order thinking it was for the March box a second time (was going to be a surprise gift...not for myself) and when I opened my box saw it was the Feb 2014 items.
That is not a problem as I had never tried those items!
How the Foodiepages box works is that at the beginning of the month you must be one of the first 50 people to order the box and it is first come first served. It is not a subscription, but a one time purchase. The cost is $14.95 and shipping is around $7 extra.
Previously shipping was included and it seems at the lower price point the boxes were flying out the door and I could never manage to order one.
So far the value of the boxes I've gotten has been around $23 or so which is not a very high value for a subscription kind of box, but I do enjoy trying new handmade foods and find it is still a worthwhile purchase for me.
I am always looking for some new handmade Canadian foods for gifts as most people I know do not want "stuff" from the mall and would rather have some new food item to try!
If you are interested in ordering anything from Foodiepages, I will post my referal link where I can get a credit towards future orders. It would be appreciated if you could click on that :)


http://www.foodiepages.ca/popup/P1F7vt


I forgot to take a picture of all the April 2014 tasting box items together, but do have some of the pictures of what the actual food items were.
The box comes with a card describing the items and what part of Canada the producer is based in.

APRIL 2014 FOODIEPAGES INFO CARD!




Kimberley's Own Nibscotti and Batch Sweet Kitchen Popcorn

Batch Sweet Kitchen Salted Caramel Popcorn: The sample size was around 50 grams if I recall and the value is around $4.00. I ate quite a bit of it before taking the picture, but did weigh it on my electronic scale.
The salted caramel corn has a rich toffee taste and you could also taste the sea salt quite well. There was also some pecans in the mix. I kind of wish I had a bigger bag of this as it was delicious!

kimberley's own Nibscotti: This is a product that is so new, it has not yet been listed for sale on the Kimberley's Own website (when I checked a couple weeks ago). What was sent out was a sampler of the product- I have no idea yet on how many will be in a regular bag or if these will only be mini biscotti bites.
The three Nibscotti were around 3" in height and not too thick.
This is an interesting version of biscotti, as it is made with the Kimberley's Own gluten-free granola and shaped like cute biscotti!
In Italian biscotti means that something is baked twice, so what seems to be done here is the granola was first made, then shaped and baked to retain the biscotti shape.

Now I'm sure you want to know how these Nibscotti tasted?
I was very reminded of granola bars, as these were made with oats, ground almonds, chia, honey. These did not taste gluten-free and I think if you enjoy crunchy snacks this would be a good product to try.
Also before I forget, the nutrition for these is quite good too- with the three Nibscotti coming in at 120 calories, 6 grams of fat, 15 grams carbs and 4 grams for protein!
These would definitely make a good snack for people who are into health and fitness too!




Louise Prete Sugo Pomodoro all'Amatriciana tomato sauce!


Louise Prete Fine Foods Sugo Pomodoro all'Amatriciana pasta sauce: This was a full size jar of the sauce and a 737 gram jar with a value of $9.99.
This is quite a heavy item to ship, so I feel the price of the tasting box is quite fair.
The tomato sauce was delicious and was also a bit spicy. There is also the addition of some bacon that comes from a local farmer and this made the sauce even more "fancy" and tasty- even though I'm sure just the other sauces are great too!
In the picture above I did not add anything to the sauce and I used some vegetable pasta for this trial.
I found you do not need to add anything extra to the sauce, but I did add some fresh parmesan and that was tasty also!

My overall impression of the April 2014 Foodiepages box:

I thought this box had a good mix of sweet and savory items!

It is nice to see a box that focuses on more than just snacks and bars. Everything in the box was very tasty amd it is hard to pick a favorite item when you like them all.
The value of the box was not that high with a total of around $16.oo. This is because I have no idea how to price the Nibscotti and did not add that in my total.
While the value may not have been that great, I know it is expensive to ship a heavy glass jar of pasta sauce, as well as the tomato jam was in a glass jar too.
I still think the box is worth getting as you do save on shipping and get to try items from other parts of Canada that you might not know about.
I'm looking forwards to seeing what new items will be in future boxes!

Have you tried any of these items and what was your favorite one?
What would you try the pasta sauce with? curious to hear some suggestions....





http://www.foodiepages.ca/popup/P1F7vt