For the month of March my foodie penpal was Seema. Since she doesn't have a blog of her own, she was nice enough to write a guest post for me. See below for the goodies I sent Seema! Also, check out her ginger peach tea syrup recipe. I'll definitely be trying that soon!
Take care,
Lauren
Hi Girls Gone Food Readers!
I’m Seema and I’ve been an avid healthy living blog reader
for the past two years. One of my friends sent me a link to a cupcake recipe
off of a blog and I’ve been hooked ever since! Beyond writing comments on
blogs, I didn’t see too many opportunities for blog readers to join in on fun
events in the blogging community until I chanced upon Foodie Pen Pals (FPP) one
day. This grand (and now trans-Atlantic!) food exchange was started by Lindsay
over at The Lean Green Bean and I was lucky enough to get my first ever FPP box
of goodies from Lauren.
My box was overflowing with delicious snacks! Lauren managed
to incorporate a wide variety of items I’d never tried before along with some
familiar favorites.
The first item I pulled out was the Plush Puffs gourmet
marshmallows. Marshmallows are delicious in general, but these were low fat and
s’mores flavored! I promptly scarfed down a few of these cocoa dusted,
chocolate chip and graham cracker studded gems. Later at night, my sister and I
roasted a few and ate them between some pieces of chocolate and graham
crackers. I don’t know what to call the final products other than s’mores crack
haha…Lauren, I think you might have sparked an addiction :-)
The next two items went really well together. I had
mentioned to Lauren over e-mail that peaches were my favorite fruit and I was
delighted to see TWO peach items. I enjoyed a mug of ginger peach tea along
with a generous helping of California peach preserves on toast.
The tea had
great flavor and I used it again the next day to top pancakes. I started using
fruit flavored teas in different recipes a few years ago and here’s a fun way
to add flavor really easily to pancakes, ice cream, over a fruit tart, etc.
Ginger Peach Tea syrup
Ingredients: (for 1 serving)
1/2 tsp ginger peach tea
1 clove mashed with a mortar and pestle
1/2 cup water
4 slices of frozen peaches
1 tsp of peach preserves
-
Add the tea and the mashed clove to the water
and bring to a boil
-
Add the frozen peaches and peach preserves
-
Stir over medium heat until you reach your
desired consistency (I don’t like mine too thick)
I still use maple syrup on my pancakes but from time to
time, I like to make something different. I topped the pancakes with chopped
pieces of crystallized ginger, banana slices, chia seeds, the peaches from the
syrup, and some syrup.
The other items were equally awesome and I’ve been packing them as
snacks in my lunches. She sent: Zico coconut water (LOVE this! It’s so
refreshing – reminds me of my yearly visits to India), double chocolate dipped
peanuts, coconut macaroons, fun size packs of fruit
snacks and almonds, dried banana slices, and wasabi coated edamame (those last
ones…wow! They definitely packed a flavor punch – a must try if you’ve never
had them and are familiar with wasabi).
Thank you so much Lauren for a great first FPP package!
Sincerely,
Seema
