FOOD FOR THOUGHT
New products offer new possibilities

By Wanda A. Adams
Food Editor

A number of new food products are worth a look:

• Sun Roma brand golden roma tomatoes are plum-size canned yellow tomatoes, available chopped or whole. The tomatoes have a pungent tomato aroma and sweet flavor and can be used whenever canned tomatoes are called for. The whole tomatoes could be stuffed with goat cheese and sliced for an antipasto tray. Or you could make a yellow tomato sauce. The 14.5-ounce cans sell for $1.55 to $1.99 at Safeway.
• Bubulus Bubalis brand buffalo mozzarella from California is available now at Costco in 16-ounce containers with 2 individually wrapped rounds of cheese in each. Good news because true buffalo mozzarella was once pretty hard to get. This mozzarella has a delightful creaminess; it melts readily atop pizza and makes a nice addition to a fresh tomato and onion salad drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and chopped parsley. It's not exactly a diet food — 87 calories a 1-ounce serving, of which 62 are from fat; 7 grams of fat per serving, 5 of which are saturated fat; 12 milligrams cholesterol and 177 milligrams of sodium — but is worth the occasional indulgence. The Costco member price is $6.89.
• Big Island Candies Bien Vivente cookies are a new offering from the popular confectionary and bakery in Hilo. These sophisticated sugar cookies are made with olive oil, which gives them a restrained nutty flavor, although there are no nuts among the ingredients — just flour, sugar, olive oil, eggs, vanilla and leavening. The name is derived form the Italian vivente — living or life — and the Spanish bien — well or good. Like many Italian desserts, the cookies are not too sweet, and the texture is very light and crisp. They pair nicely with fruit or gelato. They sell for $13 an 8-ounce book from the factory: (800) 935-5510 or from bigislandcandies.com.