Foodie Penpals with The Lean Green Bean

  

In a fit of ambition in January, I signed up for Foodie Penpals, hosted by The Lean Green Bean.  It’s a penpal exchange program where you are matched with someone and based on a few questions, some blog-stalking and your own creativity, you send each other goody num-nums with a limit of $15.

Now, reveal day was January 31st.  HOWEVER, did you know that iPhones have a storage limit and even if you buy more space, you still can’t keep every video ever taken on there for forever, no matter how adorable your widdle stinky boo-boos is?  And it’s possible that you, in a fit of “genius”, will download everything to a flash drive and then delete it all off of your phone, but then proceed to lose said flash drive and panic madly until you realize you put it in a teeny inner pocket of your purse so you WOULDN’T lose the flash drive?

I have some problems.

But here is my reveal of the lovely lovelies that I received from Kristina, who is amazing and who gives the BEST penpals goodies, which I did not allow myself to eat (mostly) until I took photos.  Which was tough because they looked (and ended up tasting) super yummy.

**These photos are terrible, they did not look this dark when I took them .  If you are a photographer, look away.  If you care at all about anything other than finding out what I got, look away.  But if you love chocolate, continue.

 THE BOX and all it’s wonderment.

First up, Flying Cauldron Butterscotch Beer! (We all know it’s really Butter Beer.  Your copyright does not thwart us, J.K. Rowling!!!)

I am a Harry Potter nut, so I’m more excited about this than necessary.  Kristina volunteers at a co-op in Minnesota (how cool, right?!) and this is a new addition there.  I am saving it for a special occasion.  Maybe the beginning of my great Harry Potter re-read that I do every year.  Well, used to do every year.  I’ve started reading it to Tater, but he is not impressed.  Mostly because I won’t let him eat the book.

This is fuzzy, but the top item is from the co-op also, a peanut butter krispy bar!  It’s a peanut butter rice krispy bar with a layer of chocolate at the top.  It was excellent and I did not share with Jethro because I had to make sure the whole thing tasted good, all the way through.  I’m a good wife.

Right below the krispy treat is a box of Minnesota Rive Rocks!  These are from Sweet Chocolat and are REALLY good.  They are like a much better tasting M&M, the chocolate is much smoother.

Also from Sweet Chocolat is this bag of Birch Bark,  (chocolate dipped pretzels, which is a treat that I’ve only recently come to appreciate)

A cut-out of Minnesota, which is tasty AND had the added bonus of letting me pretend to be a giant who was eating the actual MN — “Oh, Lake and Cook county, you are are so tasty, NOMNOMNOM!!”  (It’s okay, the baby didn’t find me funny when I did this either.)

And a dark chocolate loon.  Kristina says that everyone know someone who has a cabin up north on a lake, surrounded by birch trees and loons.  I think this sounds lovely and is MUCH better than in Dallas where everyone you know has a restaurant recommendation that is SO much better than that other guys, and OMG, do not even start on that list they published in D magazine, it’s like they don’t even LIVE HERE…

Minnesota is the clear winner.

These had to be my favorite in the bunch, chocolates from B.T. McElrath. You can see that the one in the middle, the Prairie Dog Bite, did not make it to picture day.  The Salty Dog Bite and the Dark Chocolate Caramel Bite fell soon after.  Says Kristina, “These are perfect to hide in your purse for chocolate cravings and since there is no nutiritional info, then they must be calorie and fat free!  Woo hoo!”

Kristina, I like how you think.  You are obviously one of us and should stay forever and ever.

Last, but not least, tea!  These are some of Kristina’s favorites and I’m excited to try them.  I gave up coffee even before I had Tater so I love trying new teas.  (The shy guy in the back is peppermint.  He’s intimidated by the Yogi teas, they’re a clique-ish bunch.)

In addition to all of this, I also got a recipe for Grandma Louise cookies!  They sound really yummy and I might do a post on them in the future, with Kristina’s permission, of course.

So that’s Foodie Pen Pals!  Overall, I think it’s a really fun project and a big thank you to The Lean Green Bean for hosting it every month!  I’m bowing out of February, but I think I’m going to sign up again for March.  My pen pal eat extremely well and she was a challenge, but a really fun challenge!  (Her reveal is here.)  If you’d like to join Foodie Penpals, the deadline is tomorrow, February 5th!

And a big, giant, honkin’ thanks to Kristina for sending me such awesome things!  I will never be able to think of Minnesota again without thinking it is made of chocolate.