Thursday, January 27, 2011

of Peanut Butter & Tea

Moms of Multiples need to de-stress at times, how do you de-stress?  I know a hot shower or bath helps sometimes, or a good swim, maybe a nice walk, or a great cup of tea!! Tea is a great all day de-stresser for anyone, especially Moms of Twins, Triplets, or more!!

I was just having some tea, so I thought maybe it would be nice to share it with you!

My Twins are always trying to get me to share my tea with them. I do let them sip some of my tea sometimes. I just have to limit which ones they sip. Certain herbal blends are not good for them at their age. Plus a lot of teas contain caffeine. Twin Toddlers on caffeine would be dreadful. eeek!

I love tea! I have been ordering it from a couple of pretty unique tea websites for quite a few years now. Before then, I just bought whatever looked good in Publix, Whole Foods, or Chamberlins.


One great one is Adagio Teas. They have some really nice teas. One great thing they have is the tea-of-the-month club. Adagio has an amazing array of loose leaf teas. Plus they have REALLY great teaware to easily brew your loose leaf teas in!!


My other favorite tea website is Republic of Tea.  They have fantastic tea. Most of the tea I have ever purchased from Republic of Tea has been bagged tea. I have purchased a few loose leaf teas from then though. If you are much happier with a bagged tea, Republic of Tea would be a great one to try then, They have a really cool perk that I love!! If you subscribe to their monthly tea catalog will arrive wrapped in plastic with a TEA SAMPLE INSIDE!! Talk about awesome!!! It is so nice to see that tea sample every month. Then I think, ooooh wonder what it will be next month!


PB&J??
Now, how about peanut butter. Who likes peanut butter?

Raise your hand if you do.
Well, ok well honestly I won't see your hand even if you do raise it. I can tell you that if someone asks me what I want for lunch, it sure as heck won't be peanut butter rolling off of my lips. However I have found a few REALLY cool alternatives to your average store bought traditional smooth or crunchy peanut butters. Let's face it, peanut butter is pretty darn boring, right?  Yes!!! Kids seem to like it, some kids that is. I can name off five kids who really do not care for it at all. Those would be my five kids.

I did some digging online several years ago and found some pretty great alternatives. How about Curry Spice Peanut Butter or White Chocolate Peanut Butter.... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  Now that sounds tasty! Well it just so happens that there are 2 companies that make some pretty crazy peanut butter flavors. One is unfortunately closed down now but they had a really amazing array of flavors, so I had to mention them too. I am not a peanut butter lover but these make me want a PB&J!

First off is Peanut Butter & Co. They ARE indeed still in business and I have actually caught a jar or two of there on the shelves of a Wal-Mart believe it or not! Peanut Butter & Co. has a really nice variety of flavors. Some are pretty darn impressive if you ask me. They make one called White Chocolate Wonderful that if you pair it with Raspberry Jam, it makes one heck of a sandwich!!! My kids were going on a field trip last school year and for that field trip the students were all asked to bring a simple bagged lunch that could be tossed in a trash can afterwards. My kids were really not cool with this at first. They said well can't we just take a lunchable? UHHHH NO! Lemme evaluate this situation. First off we live in FLORIDA and not in the panhandle where it can occasionally get super cold. We are in the Orlando area. The trip was during one of our warmest months, and if you take a brown paper bag lunch, you can not throw in an ice pack to keep it cold until lunch time rolls around. Could you imagine the nasty lunchable that sat in the bag from 6 am when they left the house to board the field trip bus until noon when they had lunch? EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! So I had to get creative, needless to say. I picked up this white chocolate wonderful peanut butter and then said to myself what on earth would go best with this, and then it dawned on me.... RASPBERRY!! So, raspberry jam it was and wow was it incredible. They could not stop raving about their PB&J after the field trip. They wanted more and more and more of it!  Score one for Mom and Score one for Peanut Butter and Co!


The second Peanut Butter company I wanted to mention is the one that is now closed down. It was called PB Loco and their flavors were so wacky but so awesome! I am not really sure why the company closed but in my eyes they are a legend in the world of Peanut Butter. They had really crazy Peanut Butter flavors flavors like Asian Curry Spice, CocoBanana, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Sun Dried Tomato, Jungle Banana, Raspberry White Chocolate, Sumatra Cinnamon and Raisin, European Cafe Mocha, Sun Ripened Apricot, Dark Chocolate Duo, Creamy White Chocolate, Classic Crunchy, Classic Creamy.   Wild huh!! I bet once you read Sun Dried Tomato you might have thought to yourself, is she really talking about a Peanut Butter flavor here??  WELL I WAS!!! That is why PB Loco was a great name for that company. I really hope one day they re-open,  either that or Peanut Butter and Company decides to make more flavors and adds ones like PB Loco had! This site did a nice review of some of their flavors.


Barney Butter is not even Peanut Butter, it is Almond Butter!! YUMYUM! I really like this one and it is an excellent alternative for those with peanut allergies that do not have almond allergies. It is also a Gluten Free food!! Definitely check out Barney Butter!! It is quite tasty and very good on a sandwich!

3 comments:

  1. I like almond and cashew butter. I used to get mine at Whole Foods. Our regular markets up here have them (and the PB&Co). I also love Nutella. Give me a nice seedy and nutty multigrain bread, toasted with Nutella. Nice...

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  2. I love Barney Butter. I don't even buy PB anymore. It is so much tastier and healthier. My kids don't even know its not PB. I buy it by the case from their website at a big disount...

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  3. I happen to like PB, (and even pb&j *blush*), but I do like some of your alternative ideas, for a new taste. I will have to try something new next time I hit the market.

    Thanks for the ideas:)

    New follower and mom of multiples here. Us gals got to stick together.

    xoxo Shelly

    http://www.twinpossible.com/blog

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