Nutella

We first discovered Nutella in Italy. We were picking up supplies in a local grocery store and thought it was the local equivalent of peanut butter. Imagine how happy we were to be wrong when we opened the jar and smelled chocolate!

It's made with hazelnuts, not peanuts, and a side-by-side comparison shows it stacks up more or less the same as peanut butter nutritionally. It has more sugar and carbs, but less fat, and since there is also skim milk in Nutella, it has calcium where peanut butter has none. It also has cocoa, so guess who wins in my book?

It's hard to find in this area, but the commissary stocks it. I grabbed a jar on impulse after a long absence when I was shopping for Christmas dinner, and Vicky and I have been hooked since! We're going through a jar a week, between the two of us. (The jars aren't THAT big--only 13 oz!) My most surprising discovery is that Nutella tastes sweeter on celery. I would have thought that the Nutella would make the celery sweet, but the first thing you taste is the sugary chocolate. In fact, it's almost too sweet, which is good, because it keeps me from eating too much. One stalk of celery is more than enough. It's also very yummy on an English muffin with banana slices on top. And with Bunny Tracks ice cream. Now the 'jar a week' thing becomes obvious!