Friday, August 30, 2013

Foodie Penpals: Ilona's Kitchen

This month marks my own personal, one year anniversary, in being apart of the Foodie Pen pals that Lindsay has brought to all food-lovers back in September of 2011. Bloggers and readers are welcome. As long as you dig food, your dig this program.
fpp September Foodie Penpals Reveal Day

For this month, Ilona, who blogs at at Ilonas Kitchen sent me a box of goodies from New Jersey! Which was yet another fantastic package! Her blog is all recipe-based. Her Green Bean with Toasted Walnuts and Quinoa looks so delicious! Is it sad that I’m craving it at 6 in the morning as I’m typing this? Definitely need to make me some. Check it out for yourself!


First up. We have some Sea Snax and the pretty card Ilona sent me. The Sea Snax are Classic Olive flavored. I’ve tried Sea Snax before(toasted onion-ick!) and I wasn’t too impressed. Which is strange because I love the Trader Joe’s Seaweed Snacks. Anyway, I was very skeptical about these, just because my first experience with this brand wasn’t all that great. I haven't gotten myself to try them yet but I will soon.

Next up.. tea! We have Organic White Pomegranate, Organic Strawberry, Oregon Chai(which unfortunately has milk product in it) and Decaffeinated Green tea, which I can never get enough of. Love it!


And.. some loose-leaf Blueberry Tea! Which I tried out in my brand new tea-infuser.


Isn't it awesome? Just one of the many things I obtained when I was traveling last month.


Back to the goods I got: Organic Drinking Chocolate which I'm ecstatic about! Basically, it’s vegan hot chocolate. I loved hot cocoa when I was still just a vegetarian and I never knew vegan hot chocolate even existed. This made me a happy girl! I'm saving it for the colder months ahead, but in the meantime I really need to find someplace that carries this asap!


Dark Chocolate and some Justin’s Maple Almond Butter. Nuff' said.

Organic Fruit Lollipops! I haven’t had a lolly in a very long time! Love that these have real fruit extracts instead of chemicals/dyes that just alter the taste of them.


Saved the best for last- these freaking Sugar-free Vegan Cookies! My goodness, they were good. Crunchy, and loaded with delicious flavor! I honestly couldn’t even tell they were sugar-free. I’m trying to savor them but they are almost gone.

Nom. Nom. Nom.

Big thank you to Ilona for giving me such an awesome package!

For this month I sent a package over to Megan, who blogs at  Who me, Run? I hope she's enjoying her package since she never did tell me if she got it or not.

Interested in becoming a Foodie Penpal yourself? Here’s the details:
  • 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.
If you’re interested in participating for August, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. You must submit your information by August 4th as pairings will be emailed on August 5th!