Happy Mother’s Day to All & Happy Birthday to Me!

  Well it’s hard to believe I am an “adult” today although I am trying to look at it as a good thing as much as possible—I just don’t like the fact to be growing up! But we must remember that’s age is just a number, it’s how we feel (and act!!) that determines our age. For me, I plan on being a kid at heart for a long time! I’m not doing anything totally extravagant today..other than church and making a big birthday+mother’s day dinner—check back tomorrow for the recap.

  Since the day around here is obviously focused on all things celebrations, I thought I would celebrate my contest winning over at Me and Goji in their cereal creation/naming contest. I mentioned awhile back that the name of my creation is “Berry Spice ‘n Everything Nice”. It consists of Samurai Wheat, Ground Cinnamon, Rye Flakes, Shredded Wheat, Dried Blueberries, and Dried Strawberries—it turned out amazingly good! If you would be interested in buying a box I can hook you up with the recipe ID. It’s $10.40 for a huge 21 oz box!

I had heard about Me and Goji floating throughout the blog world so you better believe I was stoked when it arrived in the mail, the first day I was home—perfect timing! =)

Loved the capsule-like container vs. a box. It takes up a lot less room in my already stuffed cereal cupboard!

For a 3/4 C serving you get a whopping 116.1mg of potassium, 5.3! grams of fiber, and 3.7 grams of protein. Plus a slew of vitamins with only minimal sugar and very low fat counts. I was impressed that this is how my creation turned out nutritional wise, seeming how I didn’t pay attention to it till I was done mixing!

  

Check out the stunning texture! The hefty wheat flakes, dried fruits, a mixture of flakes with a yummy aroma of cinnamon. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out! I would love for you to try it if you ever get the chance!

Have a great Sunday & see y’all tomorrow!

Good for You Goodies: Brothers All Natural

Happy Monday evening all! Not really sure what good ol’ mother nature is going to dole out for us this week in northern MN as far as weather goes, but check out the glorious pics from the end of last week when we had high’s near 70!

                           Random shot of campus

                                (My home above!)

I hope wherever you are, you either had sunshine in the sky, or if not, you did something fun and/or relaxing inside!! I have 2 more assignments left for this week(which is the last week of the semester, not counting finals week)! So needless to say I am getting very antsy to get home and start cooking for everyone(and me!). I didn’t know it was possible to get sick of micro-waved food. Dorm people, can you relate?! Eek! Anyhow, at least I have a dorm that is still stocked up with goodies. I can’t be stingy, I have to share this find with you!

The Good for You Goodie: Variety of Dried Fruit

The Company: Brothers All Natural

The Chew Review: Okay, so by now I’m sure all my readers know I am a die hard fan for dried fruit. It’s convenient on the run, a great crunchy(but healthy!)snack, blah, blah, blah. I have already featured numerous dried fruit companies and varieties in the ongoing Good for You Goodies segment, but this was one that I had tried previously to receiving samples. My local Wal-Mart carried only the apple and pear crisps in the cute Disney themed bags. So one day I shot on over to the Brothers All Natural website and was excited to find that their line includes more than what was available to me. This was a story with a happy ending—the great peeps over at Brothers All Natural kindly agreed to donate a box of different flavors for me to chew and review! Clearly they were confident I would welcome other flavors in their line, and clearly they were right! =) A little about the company:

“We sourced fresh fruit and freeze-dried it into thin chip-like "crisps". As for our potato crisp, it took us four years of experimenting, trial and error to come up with what we think is the perfect potato chip. The crisps contain no fat, no preservatives, and are very low in calories. Additionally, many consumers are concerned about common food allergens, which is why Crisps are processed at a facility that does not manufacture any products containing nuts, dairy, soy or wheat.”

Pineapple Dried Fruit Crisps

This was by far my favorite! It made a great addition to vanilla yogurt for a great tropical treat! These were decent sized chunks and not too sweet or too bland—but rather a perfect pineapple in portable form! Check out nutrition stats here!

Strawberry Banana Fruit Crisps

Anything strawberry banana flavored is a welcomed snack in my book. Instead of taking time to peel a banana and wash/cut strawberries(hey when your on the run to class any time saved is valuable!), now I can just rip open a pouch of these and I’m good to go! Did I mention these are great as well?! Nutrition stats here!

They also included the Fuji Apple Crisps which are the ones I had previously tried—best dried apple crisp out there folks, no joke! I also sampled the Asian Pear Crisps, and they were good also even though I am not a fan of pears in the first place—they were still pleasant.

So overall, I had a overall awesome chew with the Brothers All Natural products. If you didn’t know about em’ before this post, be glad you now know! You can head on over to their website and build a 24-pack variety box for just $21.99 & free shipping! They also have White&Yellow Peach crisps as well as the world’s first natural fat free potato chip!

See ya sometime later in the week!

Good for You Goodies: Just Tomatoes, ETC!

Buenos Dias everyone! No I am not Spanish, just being a bit creative in the greetings today. The sunshine and almost 80 degree weather is sure to spark creativity in anyone who has been trapped in a brutal Minnesota winter for months on end. Eek!

If your a new reader to the blog, just wanted to say hello and thanks for stopping by! If you haven’t been following for long, I am doing an on-going feature called “Good for You Goodies” which features products companies have so generously donated for me to review. Of course they are not just any product, they are good, good for you, and the company is dedicated to promoting some form of nutritious and delicious foods. I was doing post everyday, but like I said with the end of the semester crunch, they will only pop up occasionally for now! So keep on checkin’ back—I know you will =)

The Good for You Goodie: Dried fruits, dried, veggies, fruit powder, and some HUGE raisins!

The Company: Just Tomatoes, Etc.!

The Chew Review: Upon receiving this box, I was thrilled with how they packed it up! Remember, I am extremely detail oriented, so bear with me! Check out the stash the wonderful peeps sent me!

 

It consisted of several different snacky snacks for me to chew and review—all which I was very excited about, being a dried food fan and all. First a little about Just Tomatoes, Etc.!--->

“Welcome to Just Tomatoes, ETC.! where our fruits and veggies are ‘always in season’. We Do Not Fool with Mother Nature...

Our products are exactly what they say they are — absolutely nothing has been added!

No Salt, No Sulfur, No Fat, No Sweeteners, No Preservatives It’s the next best thing to eating out of your garden.

Our sliced dried tomatoes were our first product when we started our business 15 years ago. Our tomatoes are grown on our family farm in the fertile central valley of California. Many of our products come from neighboring farms.

Our Process
Just Tomatoes, ETC.! dehydrated fruits and vegetables are vine-ripened (or tree-ripened), hand-picked at peak condition, washed, cut and then placed in specially designed dehydrators and dried at low temperatures to preserve color, flavor and nutrients. Both dehydrated and freeze-dried products are an excellent source of nutrition.

This line of unique dried fruits and vegetables have been carefully selected and combined for your ultimate enjoyment... as great snacks and terrific ingredients for culinary treats.”

I say cheers to that! Here’s what I thought.

I love raisins but unfortunately always forget to buy them. When I saw these, and their jumbo size I knew it was love at first site. Amazing, chewy, and so fresh tasting!(Is a raisin considered fresh? Hmm..) Definitely much better than your standard everyday raisin you’d buy at say Wal-Mart.

Just Raisins

Serving Size: 1 oz.
Servings Per Container: 10
Product Size: 10 oz. tub

Calories: 130
Total Fat: 0g
Sodium: 0mg
Total Carbohydrate: 34g
Dietary Fiber: 2g
Sugars: 32g
Protein: 1g
Iron: 4%

Only $4.50 for a 10 oz. tub. Get yours now people!

How fun are the cartoons on their packaging?! It makes eating your fruits and veggies 10 times more fun! In this case, it’s veggies—Just Veggies to be exact. I also like how everything comes in a see through package so you can get an idea of what it looks like before you even open it. For me, I think I would prefer eating fresh vegetables much better than this. Sure its good for on the go and if you don’t have time to chop and wash veggies one day or something. There wasn’t a whole lot of flavor compared to their dried fruit. But they do give ideas on their website for other ways it can be used other than eating it straight up—topping baked potatoes, soups, etc. so I might try that out and see how it works instead. BTW, this mix is made up of carrots, corn, peas, bell peppers and tomatoes.

Just Veggies

Serving Size: 1 oz.
Servings Per Container: 4
Product Size: 4 oz. tub

Calories: 100
Fat Calories: 10
Total Fat: 1g
Sodium: 40mg
Total Carbohydrate: 21g
Dietary Fiber: 2g
Sugars: 10g
Protein: 4g
Vitamin A: 210%
Vitamin C: 60%
Calcium: 4%
Iron: 8%

$4.50 for a 4 oz tub(All their products come in various sizes)

Just Fruit Munchies was a great snack to munch! I brought it along in my lunchbox and I’m pretty sure everyone was envious. What sets these apart from standard dry fruit is there’s a mixture, and just overall great crunch and flavor! It is a combination of apples, raisins, sour cherries, blueberries, mango, pineapple and raspberries. A sweet-tart combo to entertain the taste buds.

Just Fruit Munchies

Serving Size: 1 oz.
Servings Per Container: 3
Product Size: 3 oz. tub

Calories: 100
Total Fat: 0g
Sodium: 60mg
Total Carbohydrate: 26g
Dietary Fiber: 2g
Sugars: 14g
Protein: 1g
Vitamin A: 10%
Vitamin C: 10%
Calcium: 2%
Iron: 6%

A 3 oz tub will cost you $6.70

I also received Just Pineapple, Just Strawberries, and Just Strawberries and Bananas. These were all a really great addition to my ever-growing dried fruit collection! They also slipped in a bag of their Raspberry Powder. I haven’t tried it yet because I am making sure I come up with a great way to use it first. Here’s a little info on it—Powdered raspberries and nothing else added. Stir our raspberry powder into hot chocolate; sprinkle over ice cream; stir into plain yogurt, peanut or almond butter instead of jam. Sprinkle any of the powders that sound good and are colorful over fresh cut up fruit, bake with them, make intense sauces, frostings or dressings. What do you think I should use it in? Any good ideas? Have a awesome day everyone!