As parents of food allergic kids, I know we are all always on the lookout for great new (and safe!) foods for our families.  Too often, this means a lot of hard work in the kitchen for moms or paying a lot for specialty foods that usually have more allergens removed than are necessary for your unique situation.  That's why I love it when I come across a "mainstream" brand of food that has taken steps to make their products safe for people with food allergies.  Kim and Scott's Gourmet Pretzels are one of these companies and the Incredible Family has the privilege of taste testing a very generous 10 pretzel sampler pack this weekend!

First, a little background on Kim & Scott's.  Since 1995, Kim and Scott Holstein, co-founders of Kim & Scott's Gourmet Pretzels, have grown their business from the kitchen in Kim's studio apartment to a national presence selling millions of pretzels each week via grocery store chains like Safeway, Albertsons, Wild Oats and Whole Foods. In addition, their pretzels can be found at Borders Books & Music, Barnes & Noble, and via regular appearances on QVC, where they sold more than 150,000 pretzels in just 12 minutes when they debuted on the network.

I asked Kim why they were so passionate about being completely nut free in their facilities and here's what she had to say:

"As parents of three little kids, we are very aware of all the allergy issues kids face. We have lots of friends whose children deal with severe nut allergies. From the very start of our business, we wanted to ensure kids with nut allergies could safely enjoy our twisted treats. We made a commitment to only make nut free soft pretzels. People ask us often about a pb&j pretzel, and we have always been very clear that we will not allow any nuts in our bakery. We are working on a sunflower butter n jelly pretzel as another tasty nut-free option. We are also working on a gluten free pretzel, along with expanding offerings of dairy free and egg free pretzels. We want to offer delicious options with an "allergy aware" commitment."

I wish more large companies would take this wonderful, safe and inclusive view!  What an absolutely refreshing outlook!  Bravo to Kim & Scott's.

But, now for the important question: how do they taste?

Well, when our pretzels arrived fresh-frozen in the mail I couldn't believe how HUGE they were - and all the wonderful flavors had me very anxious to try them all out.  Here they are still tucked in the mailing cooler:

My plan was to bring them with us to the lake house where we were spending this past weekend relaxing and having fun with two other families - we would have 6 parents and 4 kids under the age of three to be our taste testers!  Caroline is the only food allergic taster in the bunch, so this will be a true test - is it tasty enough for people unaccustomed to "alternative snacking"??

The sampler included the following flavors - both sweet and savory:

• Pizza Pretzel
• Cheese Lover's Pizza
• Grilled Cheese
• Savory Herb and Cream Cheese
• Spinach Feta Pretzel
• Mixed Berry Cobbler
• Cinnamon Roll
• Apple Cinnamon
• Cheesecake
• Chocolate Crumb

Now, I think it is important to note that the majority of the sweet pretzels did have egg in them, so Caroline wasn't able to sample those, but all of the savory flavors were egg-free.  And, of course, all of their pretzels are nut free and vegetarian.

Here are the pretzels fresh out of the oven - boy, did they smell awesome!

I decided to cut up the pretzels into bite-sized pieces and let everyone grab what they wanted.  Here are Katie and Eric making up some plates for the kids:

Look how awesome the sweet pretzels look as I was cutting them up:

The kids loved them!  Brothers, Bobby and Ben, are checking to make sure they each got the same amount of pretzel treats on their plates:

The general consensus was that the pretzels were delicious and a fun, different meal to serve.  The favorite flavors ended up being the same for the adults and the kids, which I thought was really funny: pizza and grilled cheese topped the list for the savory bunch and mixed berry cobbler and apple cinnamon aced the sweet bunch.

The only disappointing drawback that we enountered was that two of the flavors (chocolate crumb and the cheese lover's pizza) came packaged in a generic pouch that had a sticker identifying the flavor.  Fine for most people, but for us that meant no detailed information on ingredients, so Caroline wasn't able to try those two out for safety's sake.

Overall, the pretzels got a huge thumbs up from everyone at the lake house this weekend.  Look for some more pictures tomorrow from the lake.  Thanks go to Kim and Scott's Gourmet Pretzels for providing the sampler pack for us to try out.

My birthday is this week and I'm cooking up an idea that means you could be the one to score a great birthday present instead of me.  Stay tuned!!