Putting the Veggies in Your Chocolate Cookies

November is #WorldVeganMonth so in honor of that we're checking out vegan cookies that go that extra step in their claims and their ingredients.

Sneaking veggies into food isn't new but I've noticed it as part of the marketing and packaging of more and more products in the past few months. When the company FarmandOven Snacks, Inc., came to my attention I reached out to them. They send me one box of their Bakery Bites in the Zucchini Chocolate variety in exchange for this article about my experience with the cookies. Unlike other brands which hide which veggies are included in the fine print, this makes it clear that you will be eating zucchini which is widely used for bread and bar making if you can get your hands on fresh veg. By and large, I've liked baked good made with zucchini so I'm happy to give these a try. No additional compensation was received in exchange for sharing my honest taste testing of these cookies.

On the wrapper the claim is made that eating three cookies, one serving in a single foil sleeve, will give me 40% of my daily recommended vegetables. There is also no wheat flour but there is corn fiber, eggs, tapioca and almond flours in case any of those might be allergens for you (like my hubby). These cookies are also made with chocolate chips, chocolate liquor, and cocoa powder. When I opened the sleeve I found three thick but smallish cookies that look to be made by hand if the imperfect. I think I see mini chocolate chips but they aren't as shiny and black as I'm used to. The scent is strongly evaporated cane juice which I'm not a big fan of; I hope these will taste like chocolate so let's find out. These are firm but still easy to bite into, they have a brownie-like texture. These are sweet, again more than I was expecting and that sweetness quickly overpowers the light cocoa flavor I get; I can't taste the zucchini but that is generally true for me with baked goods made with that vegetable. There are bursts of chocolate when I bite into or chew up one of the chips; those can compete with the sweetness.

These certainly have a lot of chocolate ingredients in them and I applaud FarmandOven for not cutting back on our favorite food. Personally these are a bit too sweet and not chocolate flavored enough for me to want more than one cookie at a time but this is personal preference only. They certainly qualify for Sacrament status and others who tried them with love them. If you want to check out their other cookies, they currently offer six varieties and three of them have chocolate.