Seasoned Eating is here! aka a Good Day!

It is a good day! I treated myself to a giant order of the best takeout mac and cheese from the Capitol Grille. It is flavored and perfumed with truffle oil. As the wait staff came out of the kitchen with my container, she mentioned to the other wait staff that the dish just smelled amazing! It did, and it tasted just as great too. I drove home with this fragrant treat in my car, I admit I might have sped a little to get home a few seconds earlier to dive into the best mac and cheese. BUT THEN, I went to the mailbox and found a spicy packaged addressed to me! Wheeeee! Could this day get any better?

Seasoned Eatings surprise package! What could it be?

I got to participate in th Seasoned Eatings spice exchange that Country Girl hosted, and Thyme for Cooking co-sponsored from across the pond. The idea is to send a food blogger and food lover a spice that is of your cooking, or of your region of the world, and wait for another food blogger and food lover to send you their specialty spice.

When I stepped into the door, I quickly opened the mac and cheese and tasted it, then I broke into my package! Ooooh do I like surprise packages involving food!

The containers wrapped so pretty!

I took out the wrapped containers to show you what I got! Look! It is two wrapped containers! Deb from Debskeywestwineandgarden sent me, not only these 2 pretty wrapped spice gifts, she sent to me a lovely letter that felt like an old friend was mailing me. Deb sent to me bunch of recipes and a lovely magazine showcasing Key West through walking and biking! I have never been to Key West, but I hear how wonderful it is. Deb confirmed that. Deb is originally from Ohio, a more snowy area of the USA, and now she is enjoying the tropical breezes of Key West and the spicy foods that come with the region. As I read her letter over and over, and look at the magazine, I am thinking about my annual Xmas warm get-away. We are cruising to Mexico, with a Christmas morning stop (4 hrs) in Key West, and it will be my 1st time to the Keys. How fortunate, and what a coincidence that Deb lives there and has sent such a lovely and warm preview of a great treasure of Florida! What a great day for me huh!?

On a tangent, when I sent off my package, it wasn't so pretty as the one I got, and it was a bit utilitarian. I wrapped the containers with plastic grocery bags, used bubble wrap, paper, and package pillows to wrap up the spice, and I included only one recipe, and I did not include any letter, just my name and website. I want to tell my secret spice person that I love making that recipe I sent. I love that recipe, and I know it by heart. It is completely comfort food for my household. Seeing that I live in the South USA, I could not send the common flavoring (that would be salt pork fat, pork fat, or smoked pork fat and it would be rancid by the time it got there), so I had to send what means home cooking comfort, a spice that is umami and homey for me. I hope that my secret food blogger likes it as much as I like getting my tropical spices.

It is Jerked!

The suspense of what it is, is over! I got Jamaican Jerk Seasoning and Caribbean Key Lime Jerk Seasoning! This is amazing! I have never used Jerk Seasoning before! How fun is that going to be? I am thrilled, I love my new spices! Thank you thank you thank you!

Since I work, I don't cook all that much during the week, but Deb sent me the easiest recipe in the world. Check it out. Put the meat in a sealing plastic baggie, put a few tablespoons of the Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Seasoning in baggie, enough to coat the meat. Close it up, put the baggie in the fridge for hours. Later, light the grill and cook! Sweet! Matt does all the grill cooking, so I am completely off the hook to cook there, and I get to make other things to compliment the Jerked food! How fun!

Now I must contact Deb and here wine blog part of her blog. What wine would go well with Jerked food? I picked up some Napa Buehler Zin and Russian River Chard (un-oaked), and some Green Lion Cab (Robert Parker gave it a 100, what a steal at $19!). Would any of these go with the Jerk spices?

Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for what I get to cook with these fun new spices to my pantry, I will be blogging about it!