Foodie Heaven!

So I was just surfing the net one night through twitter of all things. I came across a blog someone had written about a Foodie Penpal. Well I thought 'are you kidding there is such a thing as someone basically being your penpal but sends you food, I think this is going to be amazing.' I looked into the program and found out that anyone can be a part of this. but get this I found it on February 4th and they give out the pairings on the 5th but lucky for me I slipped in just in time. (If you are interested in the program all the info is at the end)

We got our pairings on Sunday February 5th. I was paired with Kelly from NY (Ironic since the Superbowl was that day and we were playing the NY Giants). The person who got me was Alexandria from Illinois. I was super excited and couldn't wait to get started. After a day or two I got an email from Alexandria asking for my address of course and if I had any dietary restrictions and if there was anything that I really liked or really didn't like. For those of you who know me know the list of things I like is probably shorter than what I don't like so I had to be methodical about this. I said I had no dietary restrictions but that I really didn't like anything with nuts or anything spicy, as in I don't even like to use pepper on my food. I sent my email off and now started the waiting game of receiving my package!

Now just a little side note about Kelly (who I was sending food to). We were both first time Foodie Penpals so it was fun to go through the experience together. We actually hit it off and have become email penpals in a sense! :-) She is actually a blog reader so I offered to post a guest post for her which will be included a little later on.

So I was very excited to have received my package yesterday! It didn't give me a lot of time to try it but hey I think I did pretty good for 24 hours.

One of the things I was most excited about in doing this whole foodie penpals program is that I really wanted to expose myself to new foods and figured what better way to do it than to have someone send you food items that you most likely have not had before. I am happy to say that there was nothing in my package that I had tried before so I very happy about that!!

I do better with lists so I am go to list what was in my package.
1.) Double chocolate chunk organic granola
2,) Chai Spice organic hot cereal
3.) Chocolate chip cliff bar
4.) Oven-Dried Mango
5.) Feng Shui organic rice crackers
6.) Chai green tea
7.) Dark chocolate candy bar with freeze dried raspberries
8.) Gluten-Free organic chocolate chip cookies

So of all this amazing stuff I have gotten to try everything except that chai spice hot cereal, chai green tea, candy bar and cliff bar. I have plans for them all in the comings days though.

Everything else has been tried and enjoyed. I discovered that the double chocolate granola is delicious in my yogurt, YUM! The dried mango was better than I expected. I am not a big fan of mango in general but dried mango is a little sweeter and was a nice add to my trail mix as a snack. The rice crackers were just something I tried tonight because I found them interesting. The flavor is mild and I think they would be better if I treated them as an actual cracker and ate them with something else like cheese or something of that nature. The thing that I was most excited about was the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and I promise it wasn't for the obvious reason of them being cookies.

I am a pre-kindergarten teacher and one of the children in my class has been having a lot of issues as far as determining her allergies and her mom decided to take matters into her own hands and started trying different things and as it turns out she seems to have a reaction to gluten as well as milk & eggs. All of which these cookies did not contain. I was able to bring them to school today and she got to share them with me and have a little treat. It was so great to be able to share something with her when recently she hasn't been able to have much at school because of her new diet. Her mother was also very happy that she really like the cookies and took all the info on the brand. I though that was an amazing extention of the Foodie Penpals program!!

I also can't thank Alexandria enough for taking my dislikes into account and of course her lovely hand written card that she included. Everything was just great!

 In the end it was a great expierence, so much fun shopping for someone else as well and getting to hear their feedback! I can't wait to do it again next month!
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Post from Kelly!

I am ecstatic about my first Foodie Pen Pal experience. I was lucky enough to have Aly send me a fantastic package of goodies which included the following: 

 

- Trader Joe's Smoky and Spicy Peach Salsa-which I am loving with my homemade quesadillas, and on the multigrain chips that came in my package as well.

 - Single Serve Freeze Dried Apples-My first experience with freeze dried fruit and I am a fan!

- Aly's Homemade Trail Mix with Various Kashi cereals and dried fruit (which she makes in her dehydrator!)

- Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Orange Sticks-Such a good sweet treat, my hubby loved these too

- 2 different types of Granola bars which I still have yet to try. 

- Last but not least some of her homemade fruit leather.

And of course a lovely handwritten note on Vera Bradley (squee, my fav!) stationary.

 

I am not too picky but I did mention that I follow the WW plan and like to eat healthy and clean and Aly took that, ran with it and sent me an incredibly enjoyable package of food!

  

I am glad to have started participating in the program and am so excited about next month!

I am even happier to have found a new buddy that I can swap food/fitness and life ideas with.

Thanks Aly!!!!

-Kel

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If you would like to join us in all this fun here is a little more info!

And now it's time for some details about Foodie Penpals. Here’s what the program is all about:

-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! (Only if you are a blogger)
-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 March, please send  an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
-WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT. - this is SUPER important so you get on the right list!

You must submit your information by March 4th as pairings will be emailed on March 5th!

***PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, you WILL GET A RESPONSE within 48 hours. If you don''t....please re-send your email or contact Lindsay via Twitter (@LeanGrnBeanBlog). Last month we had a few emails get lost as spam so we're trying to avoid that!