Tried It Tuesday

Howdy-Ho, Everybody!

This week's Tried It Tuesday is all about FOOD!! Plus two lovely music finds that I am absolutely loving this week!

Don't you just love trying new things? I sure do! It makes me happy!!

Food

In case you missed my post about my recent trip to the awesome and amazing international market that is Jungle Jim's, you can read about it here. I picked up some great new finds. I talked about most of them in that post, but I did save three of them for this one :) Here they are! 

Sodas

Whenever we go to Jungle Jim's, Bjorn and I pick up Moxie for him (eew!), and I try a new flavored soda. This time I picked up two different flavors by the same brand:

I absolutely loved the pumpkin pie soda. It tasted exactly like a delicious, Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, but light and refreshing at the same time! It wasn't too sweet either. The blueberry was good too, but wasn't my favorite. I would definitely drink the pumpkin pie soda again!

To find out more about these organically sweetened sodas, click here.



Vanilla Powder

I drink decaffeinated  coffee in order to try to limit the number of headaches that I have per month. I usually buy plain decaf coffee (I've been obsessed with Starbucks Blonde Roast), and doctor it up in the machine before it brews with a little cinnamon and cardamon. I learned that trick from my mother-in-law. It's delish! At Jungle Jim's, I found this awesome vanilla powder to try as well to add to my plain decaf coffee before brewing.

I love adding vanilla powder to my coffee at Starbucks when I order one. But this one is even better. Vanilla and bourbon together?!?! Nuf said!

(P.S. There is no alcohol in this product!)

Click here to visit the website for Nielson Massey fine vanillas.

This bottle was a little pricey. It was $9.99 for 2.5 ounces. It is, however, made with good quality vanilla.

Beer

Seriously, this is absolutely my new favorite beer! It tastes like ripe, juicy cherries mixed with a crisp and smooth, caramel beer. I love this! I am going to find out where else they sell it besides Jungle Jim's. If I find someplace, I will link it below! By the way, I love the name too!

I haven't found a place yet! I'll keep looking for another place that carries this beer!

Giada de Laurentiis Pasta Sauce

I always walk by Giada's products at Target, and just never think to buy them. I happened to stop and look at her pasta sauce last week and thought this one looked amazing. Bjorn and I love artichokes, so I thought I'd pick this one up. It was soooo good! It is a little sweet from the roasted carrots and onions in the sauce, and it has chunks of delicious artichokes in it too. They are so tender and meaty. I made a meat sauce out of sweet Italian sausage and mushrooms, added the sauce with a little water (this sauce is very thick), and then tossed it with Rigatoni and Parmesan cheese. It was a winner!

Blueberry Yogurt

Bjorn and I also recently tried Homemade Brand Ice Cream's Blueberry Greek Frozen Yogurt. It wasn't as creamy as I thought it would be. It's a little hard to scoop out of the box, but the taste makes up for that. It tastes like fresh blueberries. I don't know if it's my favorite frozen yogurt, but it was pretty good. It is especially good the way we ate it. I melted a little lemon curd on top of the yogurt and crunched up a few Trefoil Girl Scout cookies on top. Wowy-wow! Such a good dessert!

Must have been a rough day!

Celery Salad

Bjorn's mom makes this great celery salad. I thought I'd try to replicate it the other night (I was craving it!), so I went for it! I chopped up about six stalks of celery and threw them in a bowl, juiced one lemon on top, added about one Tablespoon of olive oil, added salt and pepper, stirred it up, and grated about one Tablespoon of Parmesan cheese on top. Talk about an easy and delicious side! The next night, I made a double batch for dinner and lunch the next day!

Pork Jerky

I am not a big fan of beef jerky. My husband, however, loves the stuff! When I was at Fresh Market last week, I saw this interesting jerky flavor and picked it up for Bjorn, but I ended up liking it too! It has a really great smoky cherry flavor that I love. It tastes like you're eating a really great BBQ pork loin, minus the loin :) I got this bag for $4.99 at Fresh Market.

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Music

I have been obsessed with the next band and musician for the past week! You should definitely check them out! I can't get their music out of my head!!

JohnnySwim

I heard about Johnnyswim on the TV show Live From Daryl's House. (That show in itself is amazing. You should check it out. It features Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates. He invites his friends who are musicians over to his house to hang out, play music, and cook, among other things.) One of the bands featured recently was Johnnyswim. They are a husband and wife duo. Their story about meeting each other is so sweet. They are adorable together. Their music really hits me in the heart. It is full of passion and feeling. They are amazing talents. I love them (can you tell?). Here is a peek at one of their songs:

Aloe Blacc

I LOVE Aloe Blacc. He is like no other. His music is fabulous. His videos are fabulous. I am amazed by his talent. He wrote the lyrics to Avicii's "Wake Me Up" and sings on the track. Here is the song "The Man" from his latest album. 

Have you tried anything new this week?

Thanks for stopping by!

Love and happiness <3 Holly

Food, Yummy Yummy!!

As part of the 6th 2014 Blogger Challenge, we're writing about Food! Yay! I love cooking, trying new recipes, and finding new fun, food finds! 

This past Friday, I asked Bjorn if he wanted to make an impromptu trip to Jungle Jim's just for fun. If you don't live in Cincinnati, or have never been to Jungle Jim's, it's this awesome international grocery store, where you can find any kind of food under the sun! They have great fresh fish and seafood, awesome produce, and so many fun new things to try from around the world! You could literally spend hours in this place! Sometimes we just walk around and look at all the cool stuff!

Fresh clams from the seafood section

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Hot Sauce Isle

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International Produce Section

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We haven't been to Jungle Jim's since my birthday, and I really had a hankering for some roasted shrimp! We always get the best seafood at Jungle Jim's! Bjorn agreed that it would be fun, so we decided to venture out. I'm so glad we did! It made for a super fun night. I added it to my happy list for the week!

We ended up going to Jungle Jim's with a small list of things that I definitely wanted to get and a few things for dinner that night. And of course as always, we found some other yummies while we were there! There are always things that we can find there that we can't get other places: Asian candies, shrimp chips, German chocolate, curry pastes, and specialty sodas. It's a rare treat to get these things, so this was definitely a special treat for me and Bjorn. 

Here is a list of items that we picked up from Jungle Jim's. 

1. Easy Peel Tiger Shrimp (1-1/2 pounds)

Bjorn and I love to cook and eat shrimp, well, any kind of seafood really. We recently found this great recipe from Ina Garten through Bjorn's mom. It's roasted shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce, and it is divine! There is a link to the recipe below. We had some smaller shrimp, so we only cooked them for about 20 minutes. Sometimes, we've found, when you cook the shrimp too long, the shells are to hard to peel off the shrimp. It's like they get stuck.

Ina Garten's Roasted Shrimp Recipe

2. 4 artichokes

Bjorn and I also love to cook and eat artichokes! They are seriously one of my favs! I had never eaten artichokes like this until I had them at Bjorn's house when I was in high school. They are heaven! Sometimes we dip the meat of the leaves and the hearts in olive oil with salt and pepper. Sometimes we dip them in butter and salt and pepper. Friday we did both. Quite a few of my friends have asked me for my recipe because they don't know how to prep the artichokes. They seriously look super intimidating at first, but I promise you, they are not hard to prep! I think I'll make a post about it in the near future!

3. Green olives and kalamata olives

Bjorn and I love to eat olives, bread, cheese, salami, and cucumber soup for dinner on busy nights. We don't do this too much anymore because I'm supposed to stay away from olives, stinky cheese, and lunch meat for my headaches. However, this is seriously one of my all time favorite dinners! Open a bottle of wine and throw in a movie, and you have the perfect date night :)

4. Bocconcinni (little marinated mozzarella balls)



5. Shrimp Chips

One of my students brought me some of these a few years ago to try. They are so good! I bought some because I hadn't had them in forever! They're in one of the Asian snack aisles. They have a subtle shrimp taste.

6. Asian fruit chewy candy

My students always bring me these chewy fruit candies too called Hi-Chews. They come in flavors like mago, green apple, strawberry, cherry, and blueberry. They were on sale for 99 cents per pack, so we bought a few. They are very soft and chewy, not like Starburst, and they're not too sweet. Bjorn really like them!

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7. Massaman Curry paste

Bjorn and I have a great Thai place down the street from us (Mekong Thai). He loves their Massaman curry, but it's not always practical to eat out from there all the time. Takeout can be expensive! So, we decided to find some curry pastes to make this week;s dinners easy. We found one where you add some coconut milk and its done. I think we'll add chicken, pineapple, veggies, and rice, and we'll be good to go! We also got a curry paste with kefir lime. We'll see how that one tastes too!

8. Coconut and Mango Pepper Sauce

We saw this interesting sauce to use over meat or veggies for cooking and picked it up for another easy dinner. It's called Tropical Pepper Company Mango Coconut Grilling Sauce. We thought about using this one for some pork chops.

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9. Moxie Soda (for Bjorn...bleck!) Too sweet for me!

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We got a few other things too, but I'm going to save those for Tried It Tuesday! Can't wait to share how I liked them with you!

Even if you don't have a place like Jungle Jim's around, I find that there are always Asian, Hispanic, and Indian markets where I live and different cities where I travel too. Don't be intimidated by them! Go in and try something new and different! If you live in the Cincinnati area, Cam Asian Supermarket is fabulous too! Trying new things makes me so happy!

Have you tried any new foods lately?


Love and happiness <3 Holly