Foodie Box!

This month I signed up on The Lean Green Bean to send and receive a foodie box. Basically, you sign up and are given a name and someone gets yours. You exchange addresses and food preferences/allergies/etc and then send a box worth of $15 snack foods to your person. It was a lot of fun.

If you want to see what I sent in my box head over to the Almondjay food blog. I'm glad she liked what I picked for her!



I received my box from Maureen at Organically Mo and she loaded me up with Trader Joe's snacks! I really miss Trader Joe's and I could not have been happier to see all the food in my box.

- Orange muscat champagne vinegar (this was delicious on a pasta salad I made the other day!)
- Dark chocolate nibs (I have been putting these in my dessert portion of my PlanetBox all week)
- Almonds
- Banana Chips
- Dried mango (my husband ate almost all of these himself!)
- Smoked sea salt (Oh my goodness, this is amazing.)
- Chocolate Almond Butter
- Chocolate Hazelnut Butter (Dairy free Nutella! This was great on toast as well as my celery sticks)

Thank you for the box, Maureen. It was so much fun to receive a food box in the mail!

If you would like to sign up to be apart of Foodie Pen Pals next month, follow the directions below. I highly recommend it!

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-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for April, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. You will also find contact information on that page for the UK branch of Foodie Penpals if you’re a blogger across the pond!

You must submit your information by April 4th as pairings will be emailed on April 5th!
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Tofu Lettuce Wraps

We have been getting lettuce every week with our produce delivery and we needed to have something more than salad. I thought of lettuce wraps! Even trying to eat all the lettuce in our fridge was five heads of lettuce, we gave two to our friend Trevor.

This recipe is very much add what ever you have on hand in the quantities you have.



Ingredients
olive oil
tofu, cubed
fresh ginger, minced or minced ginger paste
garlic, minced
soy sauce
red pepper flakes
sesame oil

large lettuce leafs, cleaned
carrots, julienned
red bell peppers, julienned
green onions, chopped


Method
In a cast pan, heat the olive oil over medium high heat until hot. Add the tofu cubes and cook on each side until browned. Add the ginger and garlic, cook until slightly browned. Add the soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and a splash of sesame oil. Stir to combined and everything is heated through.

On a lettuce leaf, lay out some tofu cubes and any vegetables. Eat up.

Notes
I made this for a lunch for myself this past weekend, but gave my husband a few bites and he liked it. I liked it. I would make it again. I used the amazing tofu that comes from our local hippy store. Seriously, it is the best tofu I have ever tasted.

Dinner Club: Beet Burgers, Curry Fries, Blueberry Cobbler

Tonight we had another dinner club with our friend Trevor. He has mentioned several times that he really enjoys beets, but doesn't eat them enough. When I saw the recipe for beet burgers from the PPK website, I knew I had to make them for him.



The recipe for the beet burgers is from the PPK website. The only deviation I added was about 1 tablespoon of cumin powder. I decided to do the suggested pairing with the baked curry fries, although my curry powder was very sweet and I almost thought I had used cinnamon rather than curry powder on the fries. These were very good, the technique of boiling the potatoes first before baking is involved, but it resulted in a good texture for the fries. I put too many fries on my baking sheet so they did not crisp up enough.

For the cobbler, I looked at the recipe from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker for blueberry cobbler and adapted the following to use up our 1.5 pints of fresh blueberries from our food delivery.

Blueberry Cobbler for the Slow Cooker
Ingredients
1.5 pints fresh blueberries
1/4 cup or less sugar
1 T cornstarch

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup or less sugar
1/4 cup oil or softened butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method
In a 3.5 qt slow cooker (you can also use the same amount in a 1.5 qt slow cooker), add the blueberries, sugar, and cornstarch. Mix to coat. In a bowl mix the oats, sugar, oil, and cinnamon. Spread over the top of the blueberries. Cook on high for about 1.5 hours or until the top is crispy. Serve with Coconut Bliss Ice Cream.




Notes
Everyone agreed, this was one of the best things we have eaten in a while. My husband and Trevor both eat meat and they were very pleased with the tastiness of the patty. I had my husband eat some of the patty dough before he cooked it up and he said that not only does it look like meat, it tasted a bit like ground beef as well. So very tasty. The cobbler was good as well, but the real star was the beet burger.