Green Mountain Coffee - Good Coffee, Good Vibes

October is Fair Trade Month and Green Mountain Coffee is spreading the word. Fair Trade coffee helps farmers get paid what they deserve, improves working conditions, assists in protecting the environment, and supports community development. In countries that aren't as developed as ours, this aid goes a long way to improve the lives of the citizens. If you're interested in learning more about Green Mountain's involvement with Fair Trade, peruse their Facebook page to view videos with musicians Grace Potter and Michael Franti, who have teamed
up with Green Mountain on trips to Fair Trade farming communities. You'll be able to see behind-the-scenes videos of the trips and learn about the impact Fair Trade has on the communities. By watching the videos and participating in Fair Trade Month, you'll have the opportunity to unlock Fair Trade Certified Green Mountain samples and coupons and be able to enter to win a trip to a Fair Trade source country.

Green Mountain Coffee boasts one of the largest selections of Fair Trade Certified coffees in the U.S in both k-cups and bagged form, in a variety of roasts, regions, and flavors. I was lucky enough to be able to try their organic house blend for free thanks to the BzzAgent campaign. (Opinions are my own.)

Besides familiarizing myself with the Fair Trade coffee, I learned that 1.75 ounces of ground coffee makes an eight-cup pot. A little extra perk.

I've never tried Green Mountain before, and I always thought that they exclusively sold k-cups. The brewed coffee smelled like stepping in to a coffee shop, though I wasn't able to drink it black. Green Mountain's 'house blend' is a blend of medium and dark roasts, according to their website, and to me had a rather bitter taste. However, it was excellent with cream and sugar. Sometimes coffees become weaker when you add extras, but that wasn't the case here. Since I'm always looking for new coffees to try, I might try out another roast, or maybe their seasonal pumpkin spice flavor!

Green Mountain Coffee is available in most grocery stores, stores like Target and Wal-Mart, and online at GreenMountainCoffees.com and Keurig. If you'd like a coupon for $1 off one 12-count box of Fair Trad Certified Green Mountain Coffee k-cup packs, or any 12 ounce bag of Fair Trade Certified Green Mountain Coffee, send me an email at christinaATrunningfoodieDOTcom, or message me on the Facebook page and I'll mail it out to you.

Family Night with Kroger

I received this BzzKit from BzzAgent filled with goodies from Kroger. The instructions were to use the food for a family night or other such group thing, so I took my coupons to the store and picked up some fun food, along with a few extras not included in the kit, like an additional pizza and avocados for a layered dip.

The pizza is one of those self-rising kind. I used to be obsessed with these before I began making my own, though I still enjoy eating thick crust pizzas every now and again. We chopped some olives as an additional topping and put sliced zucchini on the plain cheese pizza (making us officially white people, according to my brother). I'd suggest cooking these for a few minutes longer than the directions state as these came out a little undercooked and gummy.

Here is the spread. My BzzKit included Kroger brand tortilla cups, frozen fruit bars, and a pizza (along with coupons that I gave to my mom to pass out). I made the layered dip to add more variety. I also had a zero-calorie vitamin-enhanced water that wasn't pictured.

Although the pizza was a tad undercooked, we still thought it tasted pretty good as far as frozen pizzas go. The chips were a bit crushed because the box they came in wasn't padded, but weren't anything special. My favorite was the fruit bars. Ice cream gets sticky and heavy, so my preference for a cold summer treat is fruit bars. Name brands can be expensive if I can't find them on sale so now I have an alternative. Six bars are in each box and they're not too high in calories either (I mean, it's a treat, and if I eat them often I don't want them to be any higher). The vitamin-enhanced water was good, too. The flavor I got was mango-melon and it had a nice, refreshing taste. It was sweetened with stevia instead of an artificial sweetener, but it had a little bit of an after taste. I drank it in sips so it wasn't too bad.

We ate all this while watching Master Chef, because you cannot help but be hungry while watching the Flavor Elevator attempt to win his way back into the Master Chef kitchen.

Thank you, Kroger and BzzAgent!

Memorial Day Eats with Kroger Private Selection

I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day Weekend. It's one of my favorite holidays because instead of being consumed by greed and gifts, it's about focusing on those who sacrificed for our country and spending time with those you love.

Courtesy of the BzzAgent program, I received a few coupons for various products from the Kroger Private Selection brand. Their Private Selection brand features premium products ranging from thick cut kettle chips, ice cream, Angus beef, and fresh bakery items. I don't think I've tried anything from this particular Kroger brand before so I was hoping for the best.

I received a bag of kettle chips, a coupon for a pound of Angus beef, a coupon for a 6-inch pie, and a coupon for $1.50 off their pint of ice cream.

I don't shop at Kroger often enough to know when their shelves are restocked, but I'm thinking it's not Thursday. Their bakery items were picked over and I was lucky enough to snag the last small pie available. Most likely they make a limited amount of Private Selection bakery products for quick turnover, so keep that in mind. As for the Angus beef, I picked up the last one, as well. Good timing. However, the ice cream was fully stocked. The Sweet Honey Baklava ("sweet" is a bit redundant here...) caught my eye so I picked up a pint of that (they come in pints!). Swirled into the honey vanilla ice cream is a walnut honey sauce and pieces of baklava. More on that later.

Honestly, I don't really know what Angus beef tastes like, therefore I won't be able to give you a good comparison between this and standard ground beef. To keep things simple, I seasoned the beef with a tablespoon of premixed steak seasoning. The burgers were being grilled the charcoals would give them more flavor, too.

Now, please bear with me as I attempt to explain how good my burger was. First off, it wasn't overcooked (and by overcooked, I mean well done), and it was very juicy. The taste of the beef was prominently beefy, for lack of a better way to describe it. Some meat tastes flavorless to me. It helped that the burgers stayed thin, too. All I know is that this was the first at-home burger I've enjoyed in a long time.

Moving on to the kettle chips, which I love. Kettle chips are sturdy, crispy, oily pieces of potato that stand up well to dips. These chips seemed thicker than other kettle-style chips I've tried and were crinkle-cut. The salt and pepper flavor usually is a winner, though these were light on the pepper taste despite looking covered in black specks. They were good, though they just needed MORE PEPPER!

For dessert, we have the aforementioned pie and ice cream. Dividing a six-inch pie among five people is very laughable, but it actually ended up being the perfect portion after a big meal.

At first I though the "private selection" label meant that the products were more natural and made with premium ingredients. Not the case, as far as naturalness goes. Both ingredient lists for the pie and ice cream are long and include additives. Keeping that in mind, they both tasted good. The apples in the pie seemed thick and a little crisp, so I'm hoping it was made with more of a "homemade" pie filling instead of a gloopy can filling. (Don't hold me to that.) The ice cream was my favorite part. The honey flavor was prominent and there was a decent amount of baklava pieces throughout the pint.

So to sum up, I enjoyed everything I tried, though I'm more likely to continue buying the ice cream over the rest.

BzzAgent gave me coupons to give away worth 20% off one Private Selection chips, pie, or ice cream. If you live near a Kroger, send me an email with your address and I'll send you a coupon.

BzzAgent: SoBe Lifewater with Coconut Water Review

A cool perk of blogging is getting the opportunity to sample different products, some that are new products from brands I've tried before and others I have never tried. My objective when I review a product is to select those that are relevant to my blog and give my readers an honest review. That's where this next product review comes in, which I think will be a great way to stay cool and refreshed this summer. Courtesy of BzzAgent, I was given two bottles from the new SoBe Lifewater drinks with coconut water line to sample. They also sent me coupons to pass out to help spread the word.

Coconut water apparently has many benefits that supposedly makes it nature's perfect sports drink, like being naturally rich in electrolytes, among others. I've seen many running bloggers hit the coconut water bandwagon, though I've never tried it myself (cost reasons). All I know is that I like the taste of coconut. It's tropical, rich, and amazing.

The three new flavors released by SoBe are SoBe Pacific Coconut with Coconut Water, Pomegranate Nectarine with Coconut Water, and Mango Mandarin with Coconut Water. Each bottle contains 10% of coconut water, has natural flavors (out of curiosity, I looked up the FDA's definition of natural flavoring - click the link and search for "natural flavor" to read more) and is sweetened with sugar and stevia. There's a slight aftertaste from the stevia, but it's not as pronounced as other drinks with it that I've tasted. The entire 20-ounce bottle contains 80 calories and 20 grams of sugar. Compared to other SoBe beverages, this is very light but contains enough substance for an energy boost.

I tried the pacific coconut and pomegranate nectarine. The coconut was my favorite (yes, I'm biased -- so is Pippin, apparently) because the flavor of the coconut was strong and very refreshing. The pomegranate nectarine was good, but tasted more tea-like in terms of strength (keep in mind that this is technically an enhanced water beverage, after all) and I couldn't taste the coconut, though I expected not to taste it in this one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try the mango mandarin since I like mango, though my favorite will probably remain pacific coconut.

Overall, I'm pleased with the line. The drinks will be perfect for times when I want something more than water but less than a sugar bomb. The flavors are well rounded and didn't taste overly sweet. The drinks retail for around $1.79.

If you're interested in trying one yourself, I have three 50¢ off coupons available. Just send me an email at christinaATrunningfoodieDOTcom with your name and address and I'll mail coupons out to the first three who respond.