Foodie Penpals the Eighth

People should blates know the FoodiePenpals drill now. If you don’t, or have been on Mars, then you sign up to send a treaty package to one plumptious personage, whilst receiving your own from another gorgeous giver.
Lovely! I sent mine to Juls of the blog GoodGobble – so if you want to know what I sent, have a look over there.

My parcel came from Ali, who doesn’t have a blog (I think), but she does Tweet @alimaley and sent a great parcel! What was inside?

And under the stuffing …

Loads of things. I had a STUFFED BOX. Obvs quantity isn’t everything, but it is nice to have lots of things sometimes. I live in the twenty-first century, therefore I consume!

So there was a lovely letter, explaining about all the things and why they were there. Clockwise from the top we have:

Pink Himalayan salt, Manuka honey, Voodoo raw chocolate, Heinz tomato soup, sun-dried tomato bruschetta, Guinness Nuts, Asian soup mix with seaweed, Pomegranate tea, a Shrewsbury, Harissa paste, cheddar oatcakes

I immediately had some pomegranate tea and a raw chocolate!

All the things were things I’d looked at, or already used, which was lovely. The pink sea salt I in fact sent tomy very first foodiepenpal. The other really exciting thing was the raw chocolate. I’m very interesting in trying to be healthy and embracing different ways of eating and raw principles are really interesting. Ali gave me lots of great advice about raw networks in Leeds too. Anyway, raw food isn’t heated above 38 degrees, so amazing things are done with dried fruit and unprocessed ingredients. Raw chocolate does have a different texture to Dairy Milk, but I think its delicious. At work we’re discussing making a raw Christmas cake for us to all share as all of us eats differently.

Thank you for a great parcel Ali, I’ve been enjoying it all month! You’re a raw chocolate genius!

Foodie Penpals the Seventh

Woah there. Seven months of Foodie Penpals … Wahooza! Seven months of getting ace parcels of deliciousness to my door? Wahoooooooooooooooo.
This month I was paired with two Sarahs. Sarah who I sent my parcel to runs a blog about lots of things, but one of the most important aspects is her candid discussion of mental health. You can read about how she found the package at her blog ‘Make-up and Mirtazapine’.

My parcel came from another Sarah, who has her own writing blog here. And once more, what a lovely parcel I got!

I did my usual ritual of saving it and then settling down with a cuppa and some cake, for the unpacking!

What would be inside my box of wonder?

All the amazing things! Sarah had clearly read through other posts and worked out what things I’m interested in and what sort of things I like. She set out by saying that she tried to theme it around Rosemary and sent some from her garden. Then there was some chilli vinegar, some parmesan biscuits, some chilli chocolate, a liquorice bar, some apple and elderflower tea, some rosemary cake and a pot of dukkah, which is a spice blend that you can add to everything! There was also some interesting infomation about rosemary and how it pairs really well with dark chocolate.

A great box of lovely new things to try and lovely homemade things to sample.

The dukkah was pretty exciting – I put it on top of some soup I made this week, which made it super tasty! The soup was a lentil, home-cured pancetta, chard and cavolonero soup. Or a veg box special in a less-pretentious tone.

The powder on top is the dukkah, which is a blend of sesame, almonds, hazelnuts, cumin, coriander, sugar and salt. I really like it. Other suggestions are to dip freshly baked bread into it and to sprinkle it over salads and cous cous. Another flavour of dukkah that the company does is pistachio and sumac, which I might try to re-create at home!

I’m sure I’m going to create some more delicious things from this great box of tricks too!

Thanks again for another lovely foodie penpal month, if you’re inclined to join in, please go over to the lovely RockSalt’s page and sign up.