Product Review - Trader Joe's Chicken Soup Dumplings

I love soup dumplings...but let's admit it, they are time consuming to make.  Also, you typically need a bamboo steamer to steam them.  While I have a bamboo steamer, for exactly that reason, I would love an easier and faster way to make soup dumplings....enter Trader Joe's

I found these Chicken Soup Dumplings in their freezer section.  There are 6 in a box for $3.29 and there is one serving in a box - which is plenty.  It has 250 calories and 7 grams of fat...so for a whole serving, that is not bad diet wise or price wise.  

They are called Chicken "Soup Dumplings" not "Chicken Soup" Dumplings - does that make sense?  In other words...they are Soup Dumplings (also known as Xiao Long Bao) filled with chicken...not chicken soup inside a dumpling. 

You have to be careful eating a soup dumpling.  You put it on the spoon, take a bite and drink out the soup and then eat the dumpling.  That is challenging for me.  What I typically do, is put them in a bowl, cut them in half and eat the soup and dumplings together.  

So...here is how they are packaged

And here is what they look like when you open the box

6 cute and perfectly sized frozen dumplings.  The best part...they come in a steamer package.  So all you do is cut off one corner and pop it in them microwave for 2 minutes.  

Then they come out...looking almost like they looked when they went in...but just not frozen

 I typically eat soup dumplings with some kind of soy/vinegar sauce but I wanted to taste the true flavors of these and not have them masked by anything else.

Photo Courtesy of Two Cousins Haul It All 

Verdict: Delicious and filling.  They are a great light supper, especially after a long day when you don't feel like cooking, but you want some good comfort food. 

Product Review - Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Cups

Danger...Danger...Will Robinson!!!  These Trader Joe's mini Peanut Butter Cups are SO GOOD!  

They come in Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate.  I'm more of a Milk Chocolate kind of girl so got a container to give them a try...I won't be buying these again.  Not because they are bad, but because they are AMAZING and I could eat them all day long.  

If you have good self-control, help yourself to these next time you go to Trader Joe's.  If you find peanut butter cups challenging to resist - don't buy these...you will become addicted to them.  Seriously!

Note: Container says the serving size is 3 pieces and there are 13 servings - so roughly 40 in a container.

Product Review - Trader Joe's Almond Croissants

I made a recent trip to Trader Joe's for a particular product and ended up picking up a few things.  The employee at the check out commented on every purchase I had made (except for one) and said "Oh, you picked all my favorites" and proceeded to tell me why she liked each item and even how to prepare some of them.  She was super friendly!!

So...I decided to do a product review on some of them.

First up...Almond Croissants.

Now...I have had the Chocolate Croissants before and they taste so similar to the ones I have had at the French Bake Shop in Las Vegas. I had never seen the Almond version before so decided to give them a try.

It is really cool how these bake up.  You lay them out the night before (or at least 9 hours before you plan on eating them) and you let them rise overnight.  Here they are from the frozen state. They look puny and flat and you you might be thinking - "uh...I'm not to sure about this"

 But after letting them sit overnight - you wake up to THIS - they double in size!!

 

It is impressive to see how much they rise.

The packages says to bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  My experience with the chocolate ones told me to go with 20 minutes and I am glad I knew that.  They were just the right amount of brown.

They have sliced almonds on top and some kind of almond (maybe marzipan) filling (which seeped out a little bit while baking).

Verdict! Very easy to bake, impressive looking, but a just a little bit on the sweet side for me.  I would get them again, especially if I were to have overnight guests. 

Vitage Recipe - Eggplant Delight

 I was researching a marriage announcement articles in July 20, 1935 edition of the The Palm Beach Post for some Geneaology research and I love browsing old newspapers.  It is interest to see ads and how much things cost and the front page headlines.

Sometimes I come across some old recipes, which are pretty interesting too.

Well...I came across this one.  Back in 1935, married women were generally referred by their husband's name instead of their first and last name so the article references Mrs. R.H. Dicken.  

Apparently, Mrs. Dicken's recipe was so good in 1935 that Better Homes & Gardens magazine awarded her a certificate of endorsement.

Now I like eggplant so thought..I might try this until I saw two words...POTTED MEAT

Eggplant with Potted Meat???  Sorry but that does not sound appealing. I wonder if anyone besides Mrs. Dicken every tried it?

Project Life - April 2022

As promised...here are my Project Life Pages for April.

A nice person in a Project Life Facebook Group - showed me how to display my layouts as they are meant to be shown (as a 2 page spread).  You can click on the photos to enlarge.

This doesn't include special pages I did for my family's visit.  Perhaps I will post those another time..we shall see.

I did find a typo on one of these pages (and have fixed it in the app so the final printed page will be correct).  I also realized that I posted a picture of my flower card twice (different pictures) - the card brought me some comfort so I felt it was ok to include it twice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 10 2022 - A Day In The Life

Ali Edwards suggests doing "A Day in the Life" each year and this year was March 10th.  I try to do this each year, but sometimes forget.  This year, I remembered though...so hear are my layouts for that day.

I'm not quite as fancy as Ali and do not buy her Day in the Life kits - the Project Life app does the trick for me.  Click on the photos to enlarge

 

 

 

 

 

March 2022 Project Life

 Here are some of my March 2022 Project Life pages.  I say "some" because I did a few special pages for "A Day In The Life"

Also, I had planned to do some pages for the Gary Numan and Kiefer Sutherland concerts ... however, in an effort to clear up space on my phone, I removed the photos from my phone before I did my pages.

Of course the photos are backed up (I typically have 3 backups)...but it will take time to pull them back into my phone and scrap the concert photos.  I may just print them and put them in pocket pages..We'll see.

At any rate...here are some of my March pages

As always, you can click on the photos to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 2022 Recap

Time for the monthly check in to see how I am doing on my 2022 goals

Looking back, I see I didn't do a March check in - in fact, I didn't blog much at all in April.  I had a lot going on though and that is okay!

 So...here are how things are going.

1) Daily Bible Reading/Prayer - Excellent - I am 100% current with my daily reading.  I had company for 2 weeks so did get a little behind but...I caught up this past weekend and today will mark 122 days of reading. 

2) Weight Loss/Eat Healthier/Exercise - Ok - Good, but needs a little improvement.  I did start going back to the gym in March and was going 4-5 times a week...until company arrived 2 weeks ago.  My intention was to rise early and go to the gym before the company was awake but....I was also off work and took the opportunity to catch up on a little sleep myself.  So I haven't been to the gym in the past 2 weeks.  However, with company in town, we went everywhere and walked a lot - so I did get quite a bit of exercise in after all.  My eating was not the best while they were in town because I wanted them to enjoy our city's great restaurants - we ate out almost every meal!  BUT...I did well and ate small portions and sometimes shared a meal.  It must have worked because I lost a couple of pounds.

3) Watercolor - no painting so far this year...I have been thinking of ideas but just haven't put the brush to the paper yet.

4) Crochet/Knit - Working on another prayer shawl for church.  The pattern I am using is not very well written and I don't especially like the colors I am using - they are okay, but I don't "love" the colors and that makes me kind of set it aside a bit.  I plan on picking the current shawl up tonight and hopefully will finish it this week.

5)  Personal Journaling - Good - I am still not journaling daily though, which my "Achieve Anything In A Year" book says I should be doing.  I don't always have a lot to say, but according to my book, that shouldn't matter...I should still journal even if I write "I don't have much to write" - ha ha.  It's a work-in-progress.

6) House Projects - I got a lot done last month...of course still a lot to do...2 projects I had really, really, really been dreading are complete now - yea me!!  When I look at those completed projects, it brings me happiness.

7) Scrapbooking/Project Life - Excellent - I am current with my Project Life pages for the year.  I completed a book for the first year of my cats and I am though November 2021 on their 2nd year.  The first year took a long time because it was weekly, but the 2nd year is going faster since it is monthly.  My regular weekly pages are up-to-date - I pretty much keep up with that daily.  I do want to do some pages from my recent family visit.  I just can't decide if I want to incorporate it with my current year PL book or make a separate book.  I guess I will see how many pages I get first and go from there.  My inclination is to incorporate it with my current 2022 book - we will see.  I will post pages tomorrow.

8) Genealogy - A little progress - did some work on looking at the 1950 census, which finally was released - whoo hoo!  I added some references to some ancestors lines.  I really, REALLY, want to somehow put all this in a book...but how?  I have ideas and resources but it can get overwhelming.  I sure wish  Becky Higgins would offer a course on Heritage documenting...she just has a way to make everything seem easy and do-able. 

In SUMMARY - so far so good - some things are right on track and other things haven't quite gotten there, but if you look at the big picture, I'd say all my 2022 goals are going quite well.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Project Life pages.