Hershey's Kisses Milk Chocolates With Peanut Butter. $2.39 per 8.5-ounce or $2.99 per 11-ounce bag.
Bonnie: This is the best Hershey's Kiss variation yet. These milk chocolates filled with creamy peanut butter are reminiscent of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Nine kisses are equivalent to the standard twin-pack of Reese's. Both contain 230 calories and about 14 grams of fat. So if you can restrain yourself and enjoy just a couple, these could offer big fat and calorie savings over the standard Reese's.
Carolyn: I second what Bonnie just said about this being the best Kiss variation. What took Hershey's so long? I'm guessing it was afraid that a Peanut Butter Kiss might steal sales from the successful Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures they somewhat resemble. I say somewhat because Reese's has a much thicker chocolate coating and a much drier and coarser peanut butter center. These Peanut Butter Kisses are softer and more delicate. In short, better, at least to sophisticated adults like Bonnie and me.
Wish-Bone Limited-Edition Vinaigrette Dressings. Rosemary Lime and Cranberry Walnut. $2.79 per 16-ounce bottle.
Bonnie: If you're an "Apprentice" watcher, you might have seen the segment this fall on the Martha Stewart version where the two teams had to create and sell a new Wish-Bone salad dressing. The winning team created Rosemary Lime Vinaigrette, which Martha described as tasting of fresh rosemary and lime.
Something must have happened to Martha's taste buds in jail (or else to this dressing during the commercial production process), because in the bottle I sampled, the rosemary flavor is almost nonexistent and the lime flavor is weak. Both were probably diluted by the dressing's main ingredient, water. The water also explains why a 2-tablespoon serving provides only 60 calories.
The other new dressing, Cranberry Walnut, is also time-limited. The dressing's way too sweet, containing four times the sugar of the slightly sweet Rosemary Lime. But with the main ingredient being water, it too is modest in calories (90 per serving).
Carolyn: I used to think I didn't like salads. Lately I've begun to wonder if I wasn't just bored with the same old Caesar, French, Italian, Ranch and Creamy Italian dressings.
What's prompted this deep thinking about salads is the recent national debut of the interesting Asian Sesame dressing from Good Seasons and this new Wish-Bone lime. Wish-Bone is calling it Rosemary Lime. But I agree with Bonnie It tastes more like oil and vinegar with lime. And the Cranberry Walnut tastes similar to a number of regionally available nut-and-berry-flavored dressings.
In brief, these debut Wish-Bone Limited-Edition dressings are tasty but flawed. Like the TV apprentices, this Wish-Bone line is new and inexperienced but promising.
Nabisco 100 Percent Whole Grain Cookies. Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons and Fig Newtons Bars. $3.39 to $3.49 per 10.4-ounce box or 1-pound bag.
Bonnie: Nabisco's Chips Ahoy! and Fig Newtons cookies and bars are now being made with whole grains. Each is considered a "good" source, providing 8 grams of whole grains, or one-sixth of the daily recommended amount, in one Newton Bar, two Fig Newtons or three Chips Ahoy! Cookies.
While that may sound good, whole grains can't compensate for all the sugars these cookies contain, nor will it make these sugary products nutritious.
Carolyn: I don't make taste compromises on cookies. Dessert is just too important. That's why I would never buy 100 Percent Whole Grain Chips Ahoy! Although they're not as bad as I thought they'd be, they're still nowhere near as good as the other Chips Ahoy! varieties. I can't understand why Nabisco didn't use good-tasting oats (a la Hillary Clinton's chocolate chip cookie recipe) for its whole grain instead of wheat.
As for Fig Newtons, they're already one of the healthiest products in the cookie aisle. The pielike outer layer was the only indulgent thing about them. Now Nabisco has gone and healthied that up too. I say give the poor product a break.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods That Changed the Way We Eat" (Quirk). Each week they critique three new food items. © Universal Press Syndicate