KP Grazing Mix - Red Berry & Nut Crunch

A mix of roasted unsalted nuts, dried fruits & oat clusters

I wasn't going to review the KP grazing mix as they're not new but my last nut posts have gone down ever so well on Twitter.... I knew you all had filthy minds.

 I had a quick Google and didn't see this particular bag from the range reviewed before so why not! 

The mix is mostly unsalted roasted peanuts with a few unsalted roasted almonds chucked in for good measure, dried sweetened cranberry pieces, oat clusters and golden raisins.

Although there are double the amount of peanuts all I could smell was oats. If I shut my eyes I'd swear I'd opened my big bag of Tesco everyday value (they taste just the same and they're 75p for 1Kg!) oats.

As always I tried one of each first, the dried cranberry pieces were nice and big, not very dry and were quite chewy but still somewhat firm; they almost felt like raisins. The front of the bag says this is a red berry mix with dried fruits but the back says sweetened cranberry and there are only cranberry pieces inside. Even more confusingly the ingredients list the cranberry as red berry flavoured sweetened cranberry pieces!? These don't taste exclusively of cranberry, they have a mixed berry flavour and while they do taste lovely (although very sweet) I don't understand why KP didn't just put a variety of dried berries in Cranberries must be cheaper.. 

Both the peanuts and almonds tasted as expected, the almonds were very crunchy and the peanuts slightly softer. The same with the taste of the large oat clusters but they were surprisingly crunchy, more so than the almonds. Finally the golden raisins were pretty small and chewy, they had a nice flavour and were sweet but not as sweet as the cranberry. 

None were great alone, the raisins are probably the best of the bunch and all mixed together they aren't much better. The fruit and raisins add some much needed sweetness to the dry, plain oats and nuts but this mix is seriously missing the salt. It was so dry and plain to eat, I know it sounds stupid - salt would make it drier surely, but it was just so boring. Plain nuts and plain oats, it was just too much plain. The sweeter pieces broke it up a little but the dry boring-ness was overpowering. 

They'd be OK I suppose if you were on a health kick - full of protein and fibre and less salt than other similar bags but I won't be buying these again. 

5/10 

KP Frosted Honey Roast Nut Selection

A delectable combination of Honey Roast peanuts & cashews mixed with pieces of Belgian Milk Chocolate Honeycomb 

I always forget how much I love nuts. And you've all got filthy minds. 

I avoid eating them in pubs, I read a study about how many people don't wash their hands after using the toilet and you don't even want to know what they found all over those little bowls of nuts at the bar! I inhale the bags of Marmite nuts when I actually remember to buy some and a couple of Christmas's ago I was fighting a guest for the big bowl we put out - joke was on him, it was my mum and dads house and I knew where they kept the rest that didn't fit! 

Well it's nearly Christmas again and as my eyes are always peeled for anything unfamiliar on the shelves, I spied this bag of KP mixed nuts amongst the usual suspects. I saw nuts, chocolate and Christmas trees so that was me sold! 

,

My first handful was a mixture of nuts, salty as expected but with a sweet, honey flavour. The two nuts chosen went well together and I could feel as well as taste the difference between the peanuts and cashews. 

Mr.1T took himself a large bowlful first and so I was left with the dregs of the bag, some of the chocolate honeycomb pieces were so small I couldn't taste them against the lovely honey flavour of the nuts but the texture of the crunchy honeycomb stood out and although that's three different types of crunch it wasn't missing any chew. The larger pieces were a different ball game all together. The chocolate used is of a good quality and I could taste them at last against the strong salty, honey flavours. I always find with any nuts (as with the Walkers Marmite crisps!) it doesn't matter what you eat with/before/after them, it's always the nuts you can taste for a while after but surprisingly the sweet, milky chocolate was what hung around each each bite. 

It didn't come as a shock then, that after the strong honey, salty, chocolate flavours that any honeycomb taste was lost in the mix. The texture was noticable but they really could benefit from being a bit bigger. 

I know trail mixes and the like are big buisness over in the US, I've seen ones sold with proper M&M's in, I'm not sure why mixed bags of nuts/chocolate hasn't really taken off here yet but I'm hoping it does soon. In the meantime I'll be trying the other bag in the KP range and making my own for sure! 

7/10