Foodie Pen Pals

After seeing it on various blogs, I decided to give Foodie Pen Pals a try.  After all, my number one favorite activity these days is eating.    Today is reveal day where we all talk about the food we received.

I was paired with Heather of Kiss My Broccoli.  If you haven't visited her page, you definitely should!  She makes a lot of indulgent food with a healthy twist - think red velvet cake parfaits, blueberry cobbler protein pancakes, and cake batter protein pudding.  She sent me her coconut cranberry protein bars and despite the fact that it would require me to hunt down coconut oil (like I said, I'm not a real HLB), I think I'm going to anyway and make a batch to take to work.  They were delicious and they held me over.  That's a really high standard these days.

The other thing I really liked about Heather's recipes is that she includes the nutritional breakdown and - gasp - her food has calories in it!  It's not just air: there's real substance.

So when Heather asked me what I might like in my box, I told her something Southern, sweet, salty, and "nothing orange."  Heather lives in Tennessee and I will not touch anything that even slightly resembles UT Vol Orange.  Remember, it's that puke orange.

A couple highlights:

Moon pies - a Southern staple.  Little known fact: my Mom called me Moon Pie as a child and my married name is a variation on moon.  Oooh, it was meant to be!

Trader Joe's (sniff, sniff - nowhere near Orlando) Cocoa Almond Spread.  I may or may not have eaten this with a spoon the other day.

See the Luna bar?  It was peanut butter pretzel and OMG, where can I find that in Orlando?

Thank you, Heather, for all my goodies.  I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you put into making my box.

The fine print:  would you like to participate? Here's the scoop from the Lean Green Bean herself.

-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.