The folks in Oregon have gone and given granola a new look.
Willamette Valley Granola Company has eschewed the usual clusters for chips instead.
Yes, its new Granola Chips offer the crunch of granola, but in bite-size chips a little larger than a quarter.
They’re made with whole grains, including oats, barley, amaranth and quinoa. The chips get their sweetness from milled cane sugar and barley malt syrup. A 28-gram serving is 110 calories.
There are four varieties: Honey Nut, Vanilla Bean, Butter Pecan, and Wild Berry.
And they are plenty sweet. In fact, the Butter Pecan will remind you very much of butter pecan ice cream because it’s almost candy-toffee-like. My favorite was the Wild Berry Crunch because the sweetness is tempered by the slight tang of the cranberry and blueberry powders used, along with the black cherry, chokeberry, black currant, lemon, blueberry, hibiscus and apple juices.
The granola chips would be ideal to toss into a bowl of tangy, thick Greek yogurt. Or to nosh out of hand on the go.
The resealable 6.2-ounce bags are available at Sunflower Farmers Markets in the Bay Area for about $4 each.
Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will get a chance to try bags of each of the four new Granola Chips flavors. Contest entries, limited to those in the continental United States, will be accepted through noon PST July 23. Winner will be announced July 24.
How to win?
Just tell me what goal you are “chipping” away at, whether it be slowly and surely or quickly and amazingly. Best answer wins.
Here’s my own response:
“Little by little, I’m getting more well versed in wine. In fact, I am just about to complete a week-long wine immersion class taught by a Master Sommelier. One of my goals has always been to be as comfortable describing and identifying wine as I am about food. But of course, the food part has always been easier, given that it got a 21-year head start over the drinking part, if you know what I mean. I may never become a sommelier, but if I can master some of the finer points of that profession, I’d surely drink to that.”