Food

Good Product (Nancy Smith)

We just received a beautiful box of smoked fish from Juneau, Alaska ... A-1 presentation ... the fish arrived in a styrofoam cooler box with gel ice ... we liked that Taku Smokeries has a healthy environmental interest. They ask the recipient to return the styrofoam so that they can reuse it ... they credit the account for the postage to be adjusted on future orders. Great company!

1-800-582-5122

Mango Mania (Sharon - Pullman, WA)

Howdy. I wanted to tell you about the mangos that Mary Jane sells.

My cousin ordered me a box of Mary Jane's mangos when my baby was teething and cranky. It was the greatest gift ever.

The box was filled with these big (like two or three inch long ovals) thick (about one-quarter of an inch) bright orange dried slices of mango.

Mangos are so delicious when they are eaten fresh. I had them in South America.

And when they are dried, the flavor is concentrated and yummy.

Don't get the idea that I ate all the mangos. I gave them to my son. It took him two days or so of slobbering, chewing and gnawing on a mango to get it so small that I thought it might get caught in his throat and took it away and replaced it with another slice. When the mangos were gone, his teething was over.

Now I buy the mangos just for special treats--for me and for him.

Using Dried Beans (Willow - Moscow, Idaho)

I love Mary Jane's dried and flaked beans. She sells organic black beans and organic pintos that have been made into instant flakes, like instant mashed potatoes. They are delicious (well, the original flavors are great, but the hot-n-spicy are just too hot for me). We add water and make them into a quick meal of nachos or burritos.

But that is not what I am writing about. I am writing about another use for Mary Jane's beans. I use those beans to thicken and flavor my vegetable soups.

Every week or so, I make a big (one gallon pot full) amount of vegetable soup. Because I am a vegetarian, I found that my first soups were too weakly-flavored since I did not add any boullion or other animal products.

Then I discovered that Mary Jane's beans were a great addition to the soups. I add about 1 and 1/2 to 2 cups of dried beans to each pot of soup. I add the beans about 5 minutes before the soup is done.

The soup is much heartier, thicker, and flavorful. And of course, it has a lot of protein.

I really love those dried beans.

Using Fresh Herbs (Linda E. - St. Louis, Missouri)

I grow herbs in pots on my deck, and use the herbs to season my cooking. I was surprised to discover that you just do not get the same results when you substitute fresh herbs for dried.

The drying process concentrates the potency of the herbs, so that an equivalent amount of fresh herb is just not the same.

I have found that to get the same flavor, I have to add three or four times the amount of fresh herb as dried. Adding the fresh herbs near the end of the cooking helps increase the flavor, but the increased amount is really needed.