Testing, Testing...

I haven’t abandoned my blog...just been very busy with moving stuff. Things are going well and we don’t have that much left to do now...hurrah!! I will hopefully have a little more time this week to catch up with everyone else’s blogs as I have missed reading them lately.

For some reason lately we’ve tried quite a few new foody things...well new to us at least. Here’s how we got on.
These are Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes). I simply roasted them with a little salt and pepper as per Madhur Jaffrey’s advice in World Vegetarian. She says that they taste similar to parsnips which I love, but I was quite disappointed to find that they tasted more like white turnips...the only veggie my Mum had to force me to eat when I was a kid (yes Mum I am still moaning about it!). So they're not going to become a favourite in this household!
These are brown rice tortillas from Trader Joe’s. According to the packet you can use them any way you can use a wheat tortilla. I started off making burritos but the tortillas were so dry I couldn’t do anything more than roll them. I figured I would make them into enchiladas instead so that I could add sauce to keep them from drying out any further. However while I set about making sauce, the tortillas dried up so much they ended up like this...
Oh dear. I won’t be buying these again...they ended up in the bin.
These are Wee G’s new favourite thing. They are creamy orange “ice cream” bars from So Delicious and they are really good! They are just as they say on the box...orangey and creamy...and only 80 calories each! We have four boxes in the freezer right now so that Wee G can OD on them before we leave and he will probably never get them again...aaaw. Visit here for some money off coupons.

More riceness...in the form of crackers this time. These are MY new favourite thing! They are super crunchy and a little salty and a great wee snack! I just eat them as they are, but I guess you could put stuff on them if you liked. My favourites are the Tamari ones, but I’ve also tried the Sesame ones and they are really good too.

I got this raw vegan cheesecake free in WholeFoods one day. I didn’t really expect it to be all that good, but it was rich, creamy and without the “clawy” texture of regular cheesecake. It was sweeter than I expected and I loved the coconut base. I would definitely eat it again if I was given it for free, but I’m not sure I would part with seven bucks for it...:)
A while back we visited Garden Wok Chinese restaurant and for dessert I got cherry choc chip ice cream. Wee G was pretty impressed with it and when he spotted this Double Rainbow ice cream in Trader Joe’s he was really hoping it was the same one. Well, we took it home and tested it out and it certainly seems to be the same one...yay! There are tons of cherries (many whole ones) in this and a generous amount of choc chips too...yum!
This is a pack of Guava Paste Rolls, something I had never heard of till I saw them in Trader Joe’s. These are basically sugar with a bit of a guava taste to them. They are very, very sweet. I couldn’t eat more than three packets at once... only kidding! One (roll, not packet) is enough and they are tiny! Here’s a close up of the sparkly sugariness...
This is Pinjur sauce I bought in Trader Joe’s (pictured on some fritatta). It’s a Macedonian sauce made from roasted eggplants (aubergines), pepper, onions and spices. It tasted quite similar to a smoky salsa and didn’t seem to have much eggplant in it even though it’s supposed to be the main ingredient. We ate it as a condiment on some veggie burgers, but it can be used in sauces too.
And lastly these are some atulfo mangoes which I bought because I thought they were a slightly cooler shape than regular mangoes. There was definitely more stone than flesh in these, but they were more fragrant and delicious than any mango I’ve eaten before. I added some to a tempeh stir fry and the rest were eaten with pancakes...mmmmm!!!

Have a great week!