Day 238 - Steamed Mussels in White Wine Sauce

I am guessing this was the first time in Indy Fringe history that MUSSELS were served at the BEER TENT… 

We had picked up a box of mussels at the Indy Trader Joe’s on the advice of a really cool employee.  When he heard about the blog he wanted to make sure we got some new products to try, so he steered us to these brand new, reasonably priced MUSSELS.  We bought a box.  Then proceeded to forget we had them in the freezer of the apartment we were staying in for our time in Indy.  Oops!  But the final night of the festival I remembered, so OUT THEY CAME!

Here is the box - find it in the frozen food section

 The box explains that you can leave them in the bag and cook them in the microwave or in hot water.  Since we were trying to get them to the party before everyone left (we didn’t think of them until around 11:00 PM) we chose the faster microwave method.  Lucky for us our apartment was only a couple of blocks from the beer tent, so we poured the mussels and sauce into a bowl, covered THAT bowl with another bowl, and rushed to share them with friends.

We are not huge mussels eaters.  The only time I can remember having them is in Paris, and we have never made them at home, only ordered them while out to eat.  So I was a bit nervous but excited to try them.

Something about MUSSELS made me want to make a FISH FACE

They were pretty good!  They were super easy to cook.  The sauce was good, I really wished we had a baguette to soak it up and eat it.  The garlic was nice.  The mussels themselves were a bit chewy but not too bad.

Laura, the mother of a performer who had come to town to see her son’s shows, tried the mussels.  She said they were very flavorful, in fact, delightful!

Laura likes mussels!

Taylor, a magician, liked the mussels.  As a magician, she made several disappear (into her belly!).  She said the mussels were “not bad”.  She is from the Northeast and claims these were “just a little chewy, but some people like them that way”.

Taylor did some magic on the mussels

David also ate some and he started a discussion at the table of what the HERB was in the sauce…  Tarragon?  Something else?  In the end we learned it was THYME. 

Eating mussels and drinking beer at the end of a long festival - life is good

They are really pretty cheap, considering how much you would pay for this many mussels in a restaurant.

Only $3.99!

Price – $3.99

Rating – 3.75

Day 184 - 21 Seasoning Salute

Not gonna lie, I bought this seasoning blend only because of its NAME.  21 Seasoning Salute – could there BE a cuter name for a spice??? 

SUPER CHEAP AND REALLY TASTY!  You should totally get some.

We do not usually buy herb/spice BLENDS.  The only blend we ever use is a Montreal Steak Blend that my parents gave us approximately a dozen years ago – a huge tub of it that has slowly been used and has taken up prime real estate in our cupboard since it was purchased at Costco or Sam’s or whatever big box store they got it at. 

Years ago David made me an amazing spice rack.  It is wooden and there are slots to hold glass test tubes, each one filled with a spice.  I would show you a photo here but we are not home right now to snap one, so you will have to imagine it.  Anyway, that spice rack has never had 21 Seasoning Salute in it, but when we get back home it will!!

So far we have tried this spice blend on zucchini (good!) and chicken (also very good!).  I think it would be a safe bet to shake onto most anything (well, not, like, coconut cupcakes, cuz that would just be gross, but most SAVORY items would be happy to be sprinkled with it!).  The label tells us “It’s hard to believe that this much flavor comes from a salt-free blend” and I would have to agree!  In fact, I didn’t know it was missing salt until I read that.

This is what it looked like on our cooking chicken bits.

Here is what is has:  onion, spices (black pepper, celery seed, cayenne pepper, parsley, basil, marjoram, bay leaf, oregano, thyme, savory, rosemary, cumin, mustard, coriander), garlic, carrot, orange peel, tomato granules, lemon juice powder, oil of lemon, citric acid.  Hey – now that I count that up that are 22!  But it is called 21 Seasoning Salute…  Are they perhaps not counting the citric acid?  Or maybe counting the two lemon bits as one entry?  

However they count it, this is a good product.  I am guessing we will go through it much faster than the steak seasoning J.  And this is CHEAP, cheap, cheap compared to any spice/seasoning at any other grocery store.  Get a bottle and try it.  

Price – $1.99

Rating – 5

Day 134 - Rosemary and Thyme Maple Toffee Sunflower Seeds

This snack wins the award for “most flavors packed into a tiny bag”.  I mean, just LOOK at the name – we have:

1.        Rosemary

2.       Thyme

3.       Maple

4.       Toffee

5.       And, what is holding it all together, sunflower seeds!

That’s a heck of a lot of flavors! 

It also wins the award for “snack that makes me sing out loud a Simon and Garfunkel tune every time I open the bag to eat some” – can anyone sing along, “Parsley, sage, ROSEMARY AND THYME….”.

Each guest had their own adorable little bowl of this treat at the party

We served these as a small “amuse-bouche” or appetizer at our Trader Joe’s dinner party (if you are new to this blog, it was a dinner party last month where we ONLY served Trader Joe’s products, and then had our guests write their own reviews and rate things 1 – 5.  It was fun!).  We hadn’t tried them before the party.

Does seeing "rosemary" and "thyme" together make you start humming, too?

One thing I will say – do not go by your first taste.  They are sort of strange at first.  So put that strangeness aside and take a few more bites.  They get better!  One blurb on the back of the package says, “Unlike anything you’ve ever tasted before”.  They got that right!  They are distinctly different.  But I like them.  They are nothing I would want to eat every day, but as a different snack they hit the spot.  If I were to rate these on my own, I would give them a 3.75.  But since this was a dinner party food, let’s look at what the other reviewers said and then average all 6 scores:

-          “Ginger?  Something burnt – flavored…  Not unpleasant in the fingers.  Satisfyingly filling, like nuts.”

-          “Unexpected flavor and fun texture.”

-          “Ok, not a big fan.  A bit bitter (over caramelized).”

-          “Great in small snackfuls but intense sweet/savory combo is too much for just a snack.  I’d love these in a salad!”

-          “Good combo of flavors.”

Price - $1.99

Rating (average of 6 people) - 4