New Foods

I'm a sucker for buying new products that I see whether it be a fruit I've never seen or a new flavor of gum. This week at Trader Joe's and then Whole foods I found 3 new things that I had to buy.

First at trader Joe's I saw pea shoots! I love pea shoots at restaurants but I've never seen them before at the stores, and trust me I've been looking.

I've enjoyed using these by throwing them into stirfry and eating them with my potstickers. Its nowhere near as delicious as the ones in restaurants though, but I suspect those are a slightly different variety.


Next at whole foods I found Keffir Limes. I've never even heard of these, but how could I not buy one to try. I haven't tried it yet though b/c when I went to look up the recipe it turns out what most people eat are the leaves, but they weren't selling those. The internet went on to teach me that the zest of the lime is good in Thai cooking so maybe I'll try that. The part that I thought I'd be eating, the citrus center, is evidently not good for eating but is good for washing your hair because its so strong. Maybe I'll give that a try.


Lastly at whole foods I found an apple variety I've never seen before. I cant remember what its called but the blurb on the sign said its from Japan, perfected in Italy, and made exclusively for whole foods.....wait what??? how can a fruit be made exclusively for a store! This seems pretty wrong to me. I did buy one to try out of curiosity, and it wasn't bad but it tasted as fake as it sounds. I don't think that was just in my head, it had this weird almost perfumy sweetness to it.

Flax Crackers Take 1

My dad has been making Flax crackers and working on perfecting the recipe. His are delicious. I though i'd give it a try....it turns out they are harder to make than it looks! For starters I let mine sit for 2 hours in the fridge in the water, but it turns out you need to let it sit at room temperature. Second for flavoring I only added (low sodium) soy sauce which made them turn out far too salty. Third I cant seem to figure out when to take them out of the oven so that they are perfectly crispy without being burnt. I tried a second batch with soy vay instead of soy sauce, and i'm not sure why but its terrible. Maybe third time's the charm...we'll see!