Foodie PenPals Guest Post

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

-       After boiling for about 5 minutes, strain the tea and return the liquid to the pot

-       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

Foodie Penpals

I'm super excited to write this post and tell you all about Foodie Penpals. This was my first month participating and I absolutely loved it. Foodie Penpals is organized by Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean. Every month, Lindsay sends you the name of someone and you send them a package of food. In return, another person sends you a package as well. Not only is it a great way to connect with other food bloggers and readers, but you also get to try new and different foods from all over the country. To sign up or find more out about the program, click here.

For the month of March, Emily from Ultra Epicure sent me a package. I was so excited when it arrived! Emily sent me some goods from the farmers market and a couple of her favorites from Trader Joes. I was blown away by how delicious everything tasted!!

I'll start off with my favorite item, the cinnamon pistachio biscotti bites. I'm a little embarrassed to say that it only took me a couple days to finish them. They were absolutely amazing!!

Emily named these the best biscottis I'd ever eat and she was right!! These cinnamon cookies were sweet and crunchy with soft pistachios baked inside and they were crusted with sugar. I am completely going to miss these!

Next, Emily sent me almond-cumin shortbread. The buttery cookies were fantastic. They were buttery and savory with a hint of sweetness to them. You could definitely taste the cumin which was a bit unexpected but totally delicious!! Emily suggested having them with chocolate and I agree!! YUM!

Next came the chocolate truffles. Each truffle was a different flavor: rum raisin, caramel, mocha, rum, kirsh and cognac. My favorite ones were crusted in sugar (of course). They were made by a french man (how fancy!!) and were completely amazing!!

 Finally Emily sent me some limp balm and some tea. She must be able to read my mind because I could live off of these two things alone!

The lip balm is made with cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, honey and stevia.

And the tea is ginger pear white tea from Trader Joes. I was happily surprised to see this tea as I LOVE this flavor.  I've been drinking it iced and its delicious!

I can't thank Emily enough for the effort she put into my package. I loved each and every item! It was such a great experience and I already can't wait until next month!!