Foodie Penpals October 2012

I’m a few days late writing this post – half term has been very fun but super hectic! Family Halloween party this afternoon, but I made the – slightly embarrassing, but definitely necessary – decision to buy cakes rather than make any, so that has freed me up for a couple of hours!

So, last month’s foodie penpals. I sent my parcel to Charley who writes at Charley’s Kitchen, and I received a lovely parcel from Emma-Louise, who doesn’t have a blog but does have a twitter account.

Emma sent me a really thoughtful parcel and included a recipe for white chocolate & cardamom mousse which I am looking forward to trying soon. Coconut palm sugar, cherry juice drink, apple & plum puree, tabasco sauce, dried cranberries, cardamom pods, sugar mice and Montezuma’s orange & geranium dark chocolate.

As per Emma’s suggestion, I gave the sugar mice to the children…Izzy refused to eat hers for a few days though though, haha, keeping it as a “cute decoration” instead…

Toby, on the other hand, gobbled his up straight away – little sugar addict!!

Emma forgot to include her note with suggested uses for the items, so instead emailed it to me. A lot of these included porridge…not sure whether that was deliberate or not re my blog name, but it did make me chuckle!! And so the next morning I made a big bowl of pumpkin porridge and topped it with dried cranberries, Montezuma chocolate, and palm coconut sugar…divine!

I think this may have even been my first hot porridge “of the season” and what a good one it was…I loved the combination of dried cranberries and orange chocolate, so festive!

I loved all the contents of my parcel, thank you so much Emma!

As Emma doesn’t have a blog, and neither does the person who sent it to her, she asked me to include a few words from her about the parcel she received…

Yay! Received my first ever foodie penpal today, chock full of treats! The lovely Laura explained in her card that she lives on the Norfolk/Suffolk border where I know for a fact they have a glut of wonderful farm shops and the area is famous for its apples. I have received a lovely looking bottle of Norfolk Pure Apple Juice where the fruit is grown and pressed on the farm, as well as a pack of delicious looking apple crumble biscuits (everyone in the office is eyeing them up), a hot chocolate stick complete with marshmallows (perfect for this time of year), an apothecary style bottle of cinnamon extract that I’m looking forwards to trying out this weekend as I reckon it’ll pack a punch into my gingerbread men, a bbq spice mix that’ll come in very handy, and a jar of local mint jelly which is a winner as I love roast dinners! To top it all off, there’s a card with a picture of a kitten drinking out of a cup that is just terrific and is going to have pride of place on my desk.

 I can’t wait for next month, my first foodie penpal experience has been really wonderful and everyone has been so lovely!

If that inspires you to join in, go to Rock Salt’s blog to find out more details and fill in the form. You can read about many other foodie penpal swaps on Lean Green Bean’s blog.